TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) – A second Chinese lawyer who represented a Hong Kong pro-democracy activist was stripped of his license on Tuesday, while Beijing tries to crush opposition to its stricter control over the territory.
Ren Quanniu, who represented one of 12 Hong Kong activists who tried to escape to Taiwan, said he had his license revoked by the Henan Provincial Justice Department.
Ten of the 12 activists caught at sea in August were sentenced by a Shenzhen court in December to prison terms ranging from seven months to three years for illegally crossing the border and organizing crossings. The other two activists are minors.
Thousands of Hong Kong residents have fled the territory since Beijing imposed a tough new security law that some say is destroying the territory’s western-style civil liberties. Since the law was introduced in response to anti-government protests that began in 2019, dozens of pro-democracy activists have been arrested or detained.
The Henan Judicial Department held a hearing on the license revocation on Friday in Zhengzhou, the provincial capital, according to other lawyers who appeared to support Ren. They were not allowed at the hearing.
Ren is the second lawyer to have his license revoked by the authorities for handling the activists’ case. Two weeks ago, judicial authorities in Sichuan took leave of absence from Lu Siwei, another lawyer in the case.
Ren was informed that the comments he made in court in a 2018 case defending Falun Gong practitioners had a “negative impact on society,” according to a notice from the Henan Department of Justice that he showed to the Associated Press.
An employee who answered the phone at the Henan Justice Department declined to comment on the case, saying they did not deal directly with the media.
Ren has years of experience in handling political human rights cases in China. He defended people affiliated with Falun Gong, a spiritual movement that China labeled a sect and is the target of persecution after his followers protested in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square in 1999.
Most recently, he represented citizen journalist Zhang Zhan, who was sentenced to four years in prison last December for trying to report the situation in Wuhan city during the onset of the coronavirus pandemic early last year.
Originally published