This July, leading human rights attorneys in China are being denied the annual renewal of their licenses to practice law, stated the Society for Threatened people on Thursday. At least six prominant attorneys in Peking have been affected by these punative measures and are being forced to suspend their work. "The lawyers are being silenced because they willingly agreed to reprsent arrested Tibetans, Uigurs, and followers of the banned meditation movement Falun Gong,” said Ulrich Delius, the consultant for Asia at the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP). "This indiscriminate declaration of disbarment will deny any member of an ethnic or religious minority under persecution any kind of credible legal protection in the People’s Republic of China.”

Jiang Tianyong from the distinguished "Globe Law” law firm in Peking has already had his application denied twice. This denial is attributed to the fact that he took on the representation of imprisoned Tibetan demonstrators and followers of the Falun Gong meditation movement despite intimidation by the state. Furthermore, he openly expressed his criticism of the state of the legal system in the People’s Republic in a U.S. Congressional hearing.

Attorneys Wen Haibo from the "Shunhe Law Firm,” Yang Huiwen from the "Anhui Law Firm,” Zhang Lihui from the "G&G” law firm, as well as Li Jonsong and Tong Chaoping are all being effected by the employment ban. Other attorneys (Li Heping, Li Jinglin, Li Xiongbing) are being hassled and put under pressure during their licensing procedures to refuse any "politically sensative” cases and to deny any interviews with journalists.

Every Chinese attorney has to file an annual procedural report by May detailing their work from the previous year. In 2010, the state-controlled solicitors union and the ministry of justice had until July 15th to check through these reports. Since 2008, the Chinese ministry of justice has enacted three regulations for checking the trustworthiness of its lawyers that make any independant legal protection impossible for defendants.

Translation: Sophia Chambers