Legal Professionals Issue Warning Over Human Rights Abuses In China
A group of prominent lawyers and judges from around the world have expressed their concerns about the detention of legal professionals in China lately, and they warn about the nation drifting further away from the adhering to the rule of law. Top human rights attorneys in the country, and elsewhere around the world, have made the accusations after concerns arose over allegations of Chinese authorities unjustly detaining and torturing legal professionals.
Just a couple of weeks ago, a number of experienced lawyers, judges, and other legal experts from around the world, collectively wrote a letter to the Guardian, detailing their concerns over what they say is an unprecedented crackdown on criminal defense and human rights lawyers in the country. They say it started around the summer of 2015, with the disappearance of two lawyers and their son, and it has continued to many other lawyers disappearing as well. One of them emerged recently, after being incarcerated for over 500 days and they say that he showed signs of mental illness and physical suffering. There are many Chinese human rights attorneys that allege to have been beaten, threatened, or worse.
In their letter they claim that authorities in the country have denied many detainees access to their lawyers, that they've inflicted unjust physical violence against the detainees, given them inappropriate medication, replaced lawyers chosen by families to represent the detainees with lawyers chosen by the state, and more.
Over the last two years, hundreds of lawyers, legal assistants, and activists are claimed to have been rounded-up by the state.
The group of legal experts called on Chinese authorities to immediately release those who they have no justification or legal basis to be detaining at the present time. With their letter, they want to remind Chinese authorities that if they hope to have any credibility with the international community as far as being a respected global superpower, then they urge China to honor the international commitments it's agreed to uphold in the way of respecting human rights.
This isn't the first time either that authorities have come under fire in China for alleged human rights abuses. And this isn't the first time that a group of legal experts have had to collectively write a letter to the public, urging for attention to be paid on the matter. No signs of improvement have been made over the years and the problem doesn't seem to be getting any better, therefore they felt the need to again write about and try to raise awareness about this issue.
Pics:
Pixabay
Sources:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/23/lawyer-torture-china-secret-jails-xie-yang
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/23/china-must-respect-lawyers-human-rights
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/24/china-abandoning-rule-of-law-human-rights-lawyers-say
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