On 10 July 2015 over 250 lawyers and support staff were detained or questioned by the police in China in one of the largest crackdowns in recent years. Many newspapers and NGOs have reported on this phenomenon. This is the situation on 29 July:
The Economist of 18 July calls the round-up “remarkable for its speed, geographical extent and the number of people targeted”. It added that state media have vilified them as “rabble rousers seeking celebrity and money“.
Of those, 230 have since been released, but 12 lawyers and three non-lawyers are still being held in undisclosed locations. Radio Free Asia [RFA] on 27 July reports that a Chinese lawyer, Yu Wensheng, has filed a formal information request to police in the northern city of Tianjin in a bid to find out the whereabouts of his lawyer, Wang Yu, who has been held at an unknown location since 9 July and marked the start of a nationwide crackdown on the legal profession.
Wang Yu in an undated photo. Photo courtesy of Wang Yu’s microblog
….“We are particularly concerned about the physical and mental integrity of 10 individuals, including 6 lawyers, who are currently held in police custody or under ‘residential surveillance’ in unknown locations, in most cases incommunicado since their arrests,” they said. The experts expressed further concern that these persons may have been arbitrarily arrested and detained in contravention of not only the UN Basic Principles of the Role of Lawyers and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but also the Chinese Criminal Procedure Code. “The fate and whereabouts of another 12 persons, including 3 lawyers, who have disappeared in unknown circumstances, are also worrying,” they noted. “We call on the Chinese authorities to investigate these cases urgently and provide full disclosure on the results.”
[The experts: Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, Gabriela Knaul; Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders; Michel Forst; Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of freedom of opinion and expression, David Kaye; Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association, Maina Kiai; and the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, Juan E. Méndez.]
– Moreover, China’s bid for the 2022 Winter Olympics, is now being attacked citing this crackdown. A group of intellectuals, ethnic minorities and NGOs stay that awarding Beijing the Olympics is a contradiction of the Olympics’ goal of “promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity.” [see also: https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2015/06/13/tibetan-protesters-in-switzerland-object-to-beijings-bid-to-2022-winter-olympics/].
“Lawyers need to be protected not harassed” – UN experts urge China to halt detentions.
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/china-lawyer-07272015140807.html
http://www.bignewsnetwork.com/index.php/sid/235116799
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/21/human-rights-lawyers-china-missing-clampdown
Hans Thoolen on Human Rights Defenders and their awards 
January 7, 2016 at 18:32
[…] were detained on 10 July 2015 in the midst of a nationwide crackdown on human rights lawyers [https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2015/07/29/the-remarkable-crackdown-on-lawyers-in-china-in-july-2015/] and placed under ‘residential surveillance at a designated location‘. Article 73 of […]
January 13, 2016 at 18:01
[…] [Since 9 July 2015, over 300 lawyers, legal assistants, human rights defenders and their family members have been detained, summoned for questioning, harassed or subjected to travel bans. It is believed that at least two dozen human rights defenders remain in some form of police custody, with the whereabouts of the majority of the detained unknown. See also: [https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2015/07/29/the-remarkable-crackdown-on-lawyers-in-china-in-july-2015/] […]
January 19, 2016 at 19:28
[…] 2016 Human Rights Watch published an open Letter from Legal Experts on detained lawyers in China. [https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2015/07/29/the-remarkable-crackdown-on-lawyers-in-china-in-july-2015/]. The letter, reproduced below, tries to link the Chinese leaders to their earlier promises that […]
February 29, 2016 at 14:36
[…] At least 290 lawyers are currently being held in detention in China, for nothing more than undertaking their professional responsibilities. Many have had their licences revoked. Almost all of them have been detained in secret detention centres for periods ranging from three to six months before the government formally arrested them. …What is portrayed as the justice process in China is a military trial. It is presented as a civilian justice process that begins and ends with the questioning of the accused. The Procuratorate wields more power than a judge. In such an environment, where independent judges and lawyers are absent, the state holds the ultimate power to decide who must and must not be convicted. [see also: https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2015/07/29/the-remarkable-crackdown-on-lawyers-in-china-in-july-2015/] […]
March 15, 2016 at 14:52
[…] On the occasion of the second anniversary of her death, Front Line Defenders once again calls for an independent, impartial investigation into the death of Cao Shunli and that those responsible for her treatment are brought to justice. ….Rather than examining their procedures in the wake of Cao Shunli’s death, the Chinese authorities have instead doubled down on the reprisals against human rights defenders and despite the rhetorical emphasis on ‘rule of law’, it is evident that rule of law as it relates to human rights defenders is further away than ever. Indeed Cao Shunli’s lawyer, Wang Yu, who bravely battled the authorities on her behalf, is now herself behind bars and facing a charge of ‘subverting state power’. She is one of scores of human rights defenders around the country who have been detained or sentenced in the past year.[https://thoolen.wordpress.com/2015/07/29/the-remarkable-crackdown-on-lawyers-in-china-in-july-2015/] […]
May 8, 2017 at 11:35
[…] A Chinese human rights lawyer Xie Yang admitted to getting “brainwashed” overseas at the opening of his trial on Monday, the court said. Xie Yang, who had worked on numerous cases considered politically sensitive by China’s ruling Communist Party, was among hundreds of legal staff and activists detained in a crackdown in the summer of 2015. [see also:https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2015/07/29/the-remarkable-crackdown-on-lawyers-in-china-in-july-20… and https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2016/01/13/the-plight-of-human-rights-defenders-in-china-just-two-weeks-into-the-new-year/%5D. The Changsha Intermediate People’s Court announced the trial’s start on its account in a microblogging website, saying that Xie was charged with “inciting subversion of state power and disrupting court order.“ […]
December 30, 2017 at 19:52
[…] This in contrast to the decision the same day in the case of human rights lawyer Xie Yang who was not sentenced to prison after he pleaded guilty to charges of “inciting subversion of state power.” Xie was released on bail in May after what critics described as a show trial. He had previously claimed that police used “sleep deprivation, long interrogations, beatings, death threats, humiliations” on him. But on Tuesday he denied he had been tortured, according to a video on the court’s official Weibo social media account. “On the question of torture, I produced a negative effect on and misled the public, and I again apologize,” he told judges. The court said he would face no criminal penalties following his full confession. (Xie Yang is one of China’s “709 lawyers”, taken into custody in 2015 during an extensive government crackdown see: https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/profile/xie-yang). See also: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2015/07/29/the-remarkable-crackdown-on-lawyers-in-china-in-july-20… […]
June 26, 2019 at 11:57
[…] [for the massive crackdown in 2015, see: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2015/07/29/the-remarkable-crackdown-on-lawyers-in-china-in-july-20… […]
December 5, 2019 at 18:19
[…] know that since July 2015, Chinese human rights lawyers have been suppressed on a large scale [ see https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2015/07/29/the-remarkable-crackdown-on-lawyers-in-china-in-july-20… and […]
July 12, 2020 at 11:37
[…] a good overview of what has happened to the Chinese lawyers since the crackdown five year ago [see: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2015/07/29/the-remarkable-crackdown-on-lawyers-in-china-in-july-20…%5D. Human rights lawyers are a cornerstone of China’s human rights movement: they represent victims […]
April 12, 2021 at 12:26
[…] The signatories are from China and other countries, including Chinese human rights lawyers Bao Longjun and Jiang Tianyong who have been targeted by authorities in their country. [see: https://humanrightsdefenders.blog/2015/07/29/the-remarkable-crackdown-on-lawyers-in-china-in-july-20…%5D […]