China: CCP Shuts Down Law Firm Which Defended Activists in Hong Kong

Another attack on those who dare to help activists of any kind. This has been China’s Communist Party’s response to anyone or anything that does not stay in lock step with the CCP.
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China Orders Law Firm Linked to Hong Kong 12 to Dissolve

A law firm linked to the case of 12 Hong Kong activists jailed in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong has announced it will shut down, while one of the defense attorneys who spoke out about the case has been issued with a travel ban, RFA has learned.

Lu Siwei and Ren Quanniu both had their licenses to practise law revoked earlier this year after they were hired by two of the defendants’ families.

The activists were intercepted by the China Coast Guard on Aug. 23, 2020 as they tried to flee Hong Kong. They are believed to have been heading for the democratic island of Taiwan.

Lu and Ren spoke regularly to the media about being barred from meeting with their clients, and about the huge political pressure brought to bear on their colleagues by local ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials.

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Now, Ren’s law firm, the Henan Railway Law Firm, has announced it will close, he told RFA on Monday.

“Our boss was told by a vice chairman of the [CCP-controlled] lawyers’ association on behalf of the bureau of judicial affairs that all of our lawyers are required to transfer to other firms, and that the firm must dissolve of its own free will,” Ren said.

The law had been a last bastion of public interest and human rights cases in China, where the CCP has been clamping down on this segment of the legal profession since launching a nationwide campaign of arrests and investigations in July 2015.

Ren said the closure was linked to the revocation of his license.

www.rfa.org/english/news/china/dissolve-03292021114137.html

h/t Lily

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