(Continued)

2. Human Rights Lawyers:

Gao Zhisheng（高志晟）,  male, 41, lawyer. Gao Zhisheng has represented many activists and rights defenders in courts or taken their cases. The more recent ones include activists detained in connection to the Taishi Village demonstrations demanding the removal of a corrupt chief in Guangzhou, the detained representatives of rural investors in oil fields in Yulin, Shanxi.  He was to defend the Internet writer Zheng Yichun, who was tried and sentenced to seven years in prison.

On November 4, 2005, the Beijing Judiciary Bureau informed Gao that his law firm was barred from practicing law for one year. He was told that, if he would not obey authorities during the year, he might lose his personal freedom. The Beijing Justice Bureau had been looking for “evidence” to revoke his license, threatening his partners and assistants to leave. On November, the Bureau officially suspended the law firm’s license and suspended Gao’s personal license to practice law.

On October 18, Mr. Gao had written an open letter to President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao requesting a government investigation into alleged systematic torture and persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. He said he must take this action because such cases were normally not accepted by any courts in China and, as a lawyer, he was unable to provide legal aid to victims. Since then, he has been under pressure from authorities to withdraw his letter.  He refused. Mr. Gao told journalists that he would take legal action, suing the Beijing Justice Bureau.

Mr. Gao is under constant police surveillance, which did not cease even during his meeting with the UN Special Rapporteur against Torture in Beijing.  He has now been forced into hiding in northern China.

Guo Guoting（郭国汀）, attorney, chief partner of the Shanghai Tian Yi Law Firm. He was one of few lawyers who would defend dissidents and Falun Gong practitioners. He represented the imprisoned lawyer Zheng Enchong. Because of these activities, the Shanghai authorities revoked his license to practice. A year after he lost his right to practice law and also his freedom of movement, he left for Canada.

On February 23, 2005, Guo’s office was searched by 20 police.  On March 6, about 30 police searched his home. They confiscated numerous papers, diaries, documents etc. They even searched his daughter’s computer. And his home phone was cut off for one month. On March 24, 2005 Guo was charged with “gathering crowds to disturb social order” and his license to practice law was taken away. Guo received over 30 warnings from at least six different government agencies, including the Shanghai Justice Bureau and the State Security Bureau.

Xu, Zhiyong (许志永), male, law PhD from Beijing University, founder of Sunshine Constitutionalism institute [yangguang xianzheng, now renamed Public Alliance Information Consultation Company (gongmeng xinxi zixun gongsi)].  He played a key role in the abolition of the “Custody and Repatriation System” in 2003.  After the “Sun Zhigang incident” (in which a migrant was detained in Guangzhou for not carrying an ID card and beaten to death at a “C & R” center), Xu Zhiyong, together with Teng Biao and Yu Jiang, openly called for the National People’s Congress to abolish the “C & R system.” The system was eventually dissolved under public pressure by an executive order issued by Premier Wen Jiabao.

Xu Zhiyong also provided legal aid to the rural entrepreneur Sun Dawu, former editor-in-chief of the Southern Metropolitan News Cheng Yizhong, the paper’s former general manager Yu Huafeng, and the Beijing underground church pastor Cai Zhuohu.  He was also involved in preparing the lawsuit by Linyi villagers against Shandong officials for using violence in family planning campaigns. On October 4, 2005, when Xu and two other lawyers, Li Heping and Li Subin, arrived at Linyi to collect evidence, they were harassed and turned away by police. In November 2005, he and Li Heping defended Gao Zhisheng at the hearing about the decision by the Beijing Justice Bureau to suspend Gao’s license to practice law.

Authorities have warned Xu not to get involved in human rights cases. They have threatened him with job loss and incarceration. The CCP branch secretary at the Posts and Telecommunications University where Xu works has repeated to him the warning from “certain government offices.” 

Zheng Enchong（郑恩宠）,  male, 55, former attorney.  Arrested on June 18, 2003 for “illegally providing state secrets to overseas interests.”  On December 28, 2003, the Shanghai Municipal Higher Court upheld a lower court’s verdict, which found him guilty of the charge and sentenced him to three years of imprisonment and one year of deprivation of political rights.  He is now imprisoned at Tilanqiao Prison in Shanghai City.  Mr. Zheng provided legal advice to people who were displaced from their homes due to redevelopment projects.

Mr. Zheng was originally detained on June 6, 2003, after assisting with more than 500 cases of families displaced due to Shanghai's urban redevelopment projects. Mr. Zheng had advised families involved in a lawsuit alleging corrupt collusion between officials and a wealthy property developer, Mr. Zhou Zhengyi, who allegedly relocated 2,159 residents from a housing property in West Beijing Road to a fringe district with very poor transportation, without paying anything for a 70-year land lease on the property.

One of the communications considered to be a "state secret" by the Shanghai State Security Bureau was Zheng passing on information about protests by displaced people to Human Rights in China, an NGO based in New York. According to local sources, the protest was publicly known. The Court acknowledged that the document concerning the protest and police intervention never reached any human rights entities outside China, to which it was allegedly sent.

Mr. Zheng's license had been revoked in 2001 after he stated that it was necessary to amend Article 10 of the PRC Constitution that secures the state's right to own the land in cities and the right "to expropriate the land in the country in public interests" from collective owners. Despite Mr. Zheng's loss of his license to practice law and increasing official persecution, he continued to provide legal advice to people even though he could not represent them in court. When news came in August 2003 that Mr. Zheng was being tried secretly, more than 300 people to whom he had been providing legal advice gathered to protest outside the court. The court called in some 200 police officers to control the crowd, and more than 100 protesters were arrested.

Mr. Zheng has reportedly been beaten in prison after he asked for pen and paper to write.  In December 2005, he was awarded the Annual Human Rights Award by the German Association of Judges.  On December 14, his wife and aunt were denied a visit to him by the prison.  Their request to speak to him by phone was also rejected.  Prison authorities refused to give any reason for the denial.

Zhu Jiuhu（朱久虎）, male, 39.  An attorney at Beijing Jietong Law Firm and litigator on behalf of northern Shanxi Oilfield investors.  Arrested on May 26, 2005, after agreeing to represent the investors in lawsuits against the officials.  In the early hours of May 26, police detained Zhu in his Yulin hotel, seizing his computer and documents. His alleged crimes were “suspicion of gathering crowds to disturb social order” and “illegal demonstration.”  He was confined at Shanxi Jinbian Detention Center.

On September 19, 2005, local authorities in Shanxi province released Zhu Jiuhu on bail. But he was banned from leaving Beijing or accepting media interviews.  He was also barred from practicing law and from continuing to represent the rural investors in the Shanxi oilfield cases. In December 2005, the Beijing Justice Bureau and the Beijing Lawyers Association re-instated his license to practice.