HONG KONG – Chinese legal authorities have threatened to revoke the licenses of two lawyers hired to help a group of Hong Kong protesters who were arrested last year while trying to escape by speedboat to Taiwan.
Ten of the activists were convicted last week by a court in the Chinese mainland city of Shenzhen for illegally crossing the border and imprisonment ranging from seven months to three years. Two other members of the group who were minors at the time of their arrest in August were returned to Hong Kong, a semi-autonomous Chinese territory.
For the Hong Kong pro-democracy opposition, the case highlighted fears of the Communist Party-controlled legal system on the continent and the risks this poses to the city’s tradition of an independent judiciary.
Most of the group faced charges in Hong Kong related to protests against the government in 2019, including arson, riots, assaulting police and carrying weapons. One member, Andy Li, was under investigation on suspicion of violating the national security law imposed on Hong Kong last year. They were arrested by the Chinese Coast Guard on their way to Taiwan, an autonomous democracy that Beijing claims as their territory, and detained on the mainland.
The two lawyers, Lu Siwei and Ren Quanniu, were hired by family members of the activists, but were prevented from representing them. Instead, the defendants were forced to trust government-appointed lawyers.
The two lawyers took on many delicate cases. Mr. Lu was formally reprimanded after representing another human rights lawyer in 2019 who had openly criticized the Chinese leadership. Ren recently represented Zhang Zhan, a citizen journalist sentenced last week to four years in prison for reporting on the coronavirus outbreak in the city of Wuhan on the Chinese mainland.
Mr. Ren received a notice from the Department of Justice in Henan province, where he is licensed, saying he would face suspension from office for handling a 2018 case in which he represented a member of Falun Gong, the banned spiritual group. He said that this case was probably an excuse.
“The direct reason is definitely related to the case of the inhabitants of Hong Kong and Shanghai Zhang Zhan,” he said in an audio message.
A letter sent to Mr. Lu by the Sichuan Province Justice Department, where he is registered, said he was accused of “repeatedly publishing inappropriate language online”, without providing details. He said he planned to request a hearing and called the authorities’ case against him “unexplained suppression and persecution”.
For years, Chinese authorities have been using annual licensing requirements to intimidate lawyers involved in sensitive cases, using the threat of exclusion to punish those who do not give up.
Mr. Lu and Mr. Ren each had three days to organize hearings on their licenses, but Mr. Ren said he had little hope for a successful appeal.
A group representing the activists’ relatives said they believed the timing of the actions against the two lawyers indicated that they were “obviously revenge for their involvement” in the Hong Kong case.
“For their boldness to go against the constituted powers and persistence in defending the rights of the twelve, the authorities resorted to the end of their professional career and the cut of their livelihood”, said the families in a note.
The families said they hope to visit their imprisoned relatives as soon as possible, but so far have received little information from lawyers appointed by the state.
Tiffany May contributed reports.