2 China rights lawyers slapped with lifetime ban

[May 08, 2010]  BEIJING (AP) -- Two Chinese lawyers who represented a member of an outlawed spiritual movement have been banned for life from practicing law -- a penalty they said Saturday is designed to scare other lawyers away from taking on sensitive human rights cases.

Tang Jitian and Liu Wei said during separate telephone interviews that Beijing judicial authorities informed them Friday that they had lost their credentials. The ruling is permanent, but both plan to appeal.

Chinese authorities tend to crack down on anything they see as dissent, and many are uncomfortable with the increasing assertiveness of the country's lawyers. Many lawyers have been punished for working on sensitive issues like the Falun Gong, the spiritual movement the communist government has banned as an evil cult -- apparently concerned it could threaten the state's authority.

"There are some judicial authorities who are very conservative and quite obstinate," Tang said. "Perhaps in making this ruling, they are trying to send a warning to other lawyers to make them afraid of also ending up like this."

The Beijing Municipal Bureau of Justice posted separate notices Friday on its website announcing that Liu and Tang had lost their licenses. The notices said the pair had "disobeyed court personnel and disrupted order in the courtroom" during an April 2009 trial at the Luzhou Municipal Intermediate People's Court in Sichuan province.

The lawyers say they were illegally videotaped during the trial, interrupted repeatedly by the judge and ordered out of the courtroom by unidentified men. Tang and Liu eventually walked out of the courtroom after they objected to being videotaped -- which is illegal in Chinese courtrooms -- and the court descended into chaos.

Sharon Hom, executive director of New York-based Human Rights in China, said in a statement Saturday that the lawyers "withdrew from a show trial in which the judge had made it impossible for them to do their work." Hom said the Beijing Bureau of Justice's decision to revoke their licenses "made a mockery of justice and the rule of law."

Liu said the decision was part of "a general environment that has been set up to suppress lawyers" in China.

Lawyers in China have faced increasing restrictions over the past year, with a prominent Beijing-based legal nonprofit group shut down and the licenses of more than 50 Beijing lawyers not renewed.

Calls to the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Justice rang unanswered Saturday.

[Associated Press; By ALEXA OLESEN]

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