Human Rights Lawyers in China

Human Rights Lawyers in China

Accepted by Jin Bianling, the wife of Jiang Tianyong, a political prisoner who was detained and forcibly disappeared by Chinese authorities for his work defending the rights of religious minorities, people with HIV/AIDS, and other vulnerable communities. Bianling was forced to seek political asylum in the United States due to state harassment of her family and has not seen her husband since 2013.

On July 9, 2015, Chinese state security forces arrested, detained, disappeared, and forcibly questioned more than 300 human rights lawyers and legal activists in a widespread repression which would later be known as the “709” crackdown—one of the largest coordinated suppressions of human rights defenders in decades. The 709 crackdown served as a warning, not only to human rights lawyers, but to all members of civil society, that the right to political dissent was not a right that would be allowed to the people of China.

Like Jiang Tianyong, Li Baiguang, was one of hundreds of courageous human rights lawyers who faced persecution for defending human rights in China. Throughout his career, Li took on hundreds of human rights cases and famously brought legal action on behalf of 100,000 people who had been forcibly evicted from their homes. Li’s story is just one of many – the repression and abuse of lawyers who continue to defend religious minorities and political dissenters risk re-arrest, intimidation, harassment, and grievous bodily harm, even death. On February 26, 2018, Li died unexpectedly of liver cancer.

With this Tribute, the World Movement remembers and honors all of them: Li Baiguang, who fought for religious freedom despite his illness; Jiang Tianyong, detained and imprisoned for aiding his friends and colleagues; Wang Quanzhang, disappeared since the 709 crackdown; Wang Yu, arrested and tortured; Li Yuhan, detained and tortured for defending Wang Yu; and many other lawyers and legal activists.