China: Release “Barefoot Lawyer”
Defendant’s Lawyers Barred from Mounting a Defense
(New York) – Chinese authorities should immediately release Chen Guangcheng, a blind lawyer persecuted for exposing
official abuses, Human Rights Watch said today. Since his arbitrary detention in August 2005, Chen has been subject to
physical abuse by police, and local officials have repeatedly interfered with attempts by Chen’s legal team to interview
witnesses and gather evidence. Chen is due to be tried on July 20 for intent to damage public property and inciting
others to join him to disrupt traffic.
“When Chen tried to make proper use of China’s legal system, the response wasn’t due process,” said Sophie Richardson,
deputy director of the Asia division of Human Rights Watch. “It was house arrest, physical abuse, and then
‘disappearance’ by local authorities. His case is a textbook example of how little the rule of law really means in
China.”
In March 2005, Chen learned from villagers that officials in Linyi, a city in Shandong province, had subjected thousands
of people trying to evade restrictive population control laws to late-term forced abortions, midnight raids, beatings
and compulsory sterilization. Chen then began his own investigation into the allegations. In June 2005, he filed a
class-action lawsuit, and then traveled to Beijing to discuss the case with legal scholars, lawyers and foreign
journalists. Soon after, the lawsuit was rejected.
On August 12, 2005, local officials imprisoned Chen and his immediate family in their home and shut off all outside
communication. They were detained there for seven months. Chen did manage to escape in September, but was apprehended in
Beijing and returned to Linyi. When he tried again to escape in October, local authorities failed to protect him against
beatings by civilians apparently working in connection with the police to help enforce his isolation. On March 11, 2006,
Yinan county police officers “disappeared” Chen for three months. It was not until June 11, 2006, that officials
acknowledged he had been formally detained in the Yinan County Detention Center. On June 21, the Yinan County People’s
Procuratorate approved Chen’s arrest.
That same day, Chen’s lawyers, Li Jinsong and Zhang Lihui, were able to visit him, but from then on, authorities
escalated the pressure to deny access to defense witnesses and materials for all the lawyers and activists involved. On
June 22, police officers took lawyer Li in for questioning. Unknown assailants beat three other lawyers defending
villagers jailed for supporting Chen. Police officers first looked on as the cameras of the villagers’ lawyers were
smashed, then took them in for questioning. When Li Jinsong and Li Subin, another member of Chen’s legal team, tried to
visit Chen’s wife on June 23, they were stopped and beaten by guards. The following day, all the lawyers involved
returned to Beijing. Li Jinsong and Li Subin tried returning to Shandong on June 27, only to be harassed again while the
police again stood by. Some 20 men overturned the lawyers’ car and police took Li Jinsong in for questioning once again.
“Chen’s story – his disappearance, letting unknown assailants beat him and his legal team, and holding him for months
without any judicial process – spotlights the failings of the Chinese judiciary,” said Richardson. “China should free
Chen and welcome his exposure of official abuses, instead of continuing to persecute him.”
For more information see the Chronology of the Chen Guangcheng case.