yitong law firm
read a blog article by liu xiaoyuan, a yitong law firm attorney, regarding the forced closing of the firm .
chinese communist party (ccp) officials ordered well - known beijing human rights law firm yitong law office to cease operations on feb. 17 for six months for allegedly allowing a lawyer in the firm to practice without a license .
chinaaid urges the international community to speak out on behalf of yitong law firm. their work defending human rights cases, including persecuted house church christians, has made them a target of the government. contact the chinese ambassador and let him know your concern for the actions against yitong law firm :
yitong law firm was closed down for six months on tuesday for allowing a lawyer to practise without a licence, said li jinsong, who heads the company .
cases: a beijing law firm ordered shut defended famous activists such as hu jia, shown here in 2007 .
according to a copy of the court document posted on yitong & apos; s website, the firm violated the law in allowing lawyer li subin to work there without a licence .
according to yitong, on february 16, 2009, officials of the haidian district judicial bureau delivered a notice to yitong that the firm will be punished for permitting a lawyer to practice without a license. the following day, yitong received a second notice stating that the judicial bureau intends to shut down the firm for six months and that the firm can request a hearing by february 20 .
a chinese news source (urltoken), interviewed attorney liu xiaoyuan of yitong law firm. attorney liu said that the law firm will defend itself on the basis of the following three aspects: 1) haidian district bureau of justice is not qualified to impose the administrative penalty of forcing the law firm to close for six months. 2) li subin did not act as an attorney in the firm' s cases; he was only involved as a legal advisor. 3) even if the charge was legitimate, the penalty of closing down the law firm for six months is not fair or just. in similar cases, the penalty is generally a warning, an order for improvement, or a fine .
in a draconian decision on march 17, 2009, the haidian district bureau of justice in beijing ordered a six - month shutdown of yitong, the beijing law firm well known for handling controversial and sensitive cases. in addition, the bureau ordered the firm to turn in the licenses of all their lawyers. the bureau of justice said that the firm violated the law in allowing a lawyer, li subin (李苏滨), to work without a license .
at a hearing next week the yitong law firm, which has been at the center of several high - profile political cases, will appeal a ruling by a local justice department in beijing suspending the practice for six months, according to managing partner li jinsong .
in october 2008, li and cheng hai (程海), another prominent defense lawyer, left yitong under pressure from the firm. earlier, five other lawyers at the firm, also signers of the appeal, had been dismissed or left voluntarily .
the allegation, however, underscores a major hindrance to the practice of law in china .
i & apos; ll continue working in the law ,
mr li said .
a chinese court has ordered a beijing law firm which specialises in human rights cases to close for six months amid a crackdown on dissent in a year of sensitive anniversaries .
chinese authorities have told a law firm in beijing known for its human rights work that it will be closed, lawyers and activists said friday. a beijing judicial bureau told the yitong law firm on tuesday that it would be shut down for six months, with a final decision to be made after a court hearing in the coming days, said li jinsong, the firm’s managing lawyer. the firm has represented some of china ’s leading dissidents, including hu jia, who is serving a jail term for inciting subversion, and chen guangcheng, jailed in 2006 after campaigning against forced abortions and sterilizations .
the beijing yitong law firm was given notice that it will be shut down for six months for, the authorities claimed, allowing a lawyer in the firm to practice without a license. however, the lawyer in question, li subin (李苏滨), said that most likely the authorities wanted to punish the firm because some of its lawyers were among the signers of an appeal in august 2008 that called for direct election of the beijing lawyers association and because the firm has handled a number of controversial cases .
last year, li and several other lawyers in yitong law office including cheng hai, wen haipo, and yeung huwen launched a campaign to call for direct elections in the beijing lawyer’s association .
chinese authorities have shut down a beijing law firm known for its human rights work and efforts to confront corrupt officials, the head of the company and a rights group said .
li jinsong said that he believes the ccp member’s ultimate goal is to shut down yitong because the firm is capable of playing a leading role in challenging the actions of corrupt ccp officials .
i did it to save the law firm and to save them ,
he says now, though the gesture does not appear to have been enough to prevent the closure .
a spokeswoman for the justice department in haidian, the beijing district where the firm is headquartered, says she could not comment on the yitong case because it had not yet been finally decided .
[ * gao zhisheng wrote a series of open letters criticizing the chinese authorities' suppression of falun gong practitioners in 2005. his beijing law firm was shut down soon after that. ]
lawyers at the firm have said that most likely the authorities wanted to punish the firm because some of its lawyers were among the signers of an appeal in august 2008 that called for direct election of the beijing lawyers association, and because of the type of cases the firm handles .
it & apos; s ridiculous. it & apos; s against the law ,
mr li said by telephone, refering to the court & apos; s decision to shut the firm .
yitong’s owner li jinsong and partner liu xiaoyuan took the leading role in the case to defend yang and his family’s interests .
he was forced to stop working at yitong late last year under government pressure and had been one of the supporters of the election .
a beijing firm known for defending famous activists is told to close. attorneys elsewhere have been detained or tried .
yitong' s partners are the latest casualties in a growing list of rights lawyers to have suffered at the hands of the chinese authorities .
some lawyers at the firm, yitong, had also been involved in calling for direct elections to the state - controlled beijing lawyer & apos; s association, which had angered the government, the new york - based group human rights in china said .
that would kill the firm ,
says mr. li .
they are distorting facts... to get revenge
for the way the firm' s lawyers have criticized or defied government agencies, he charges .
mr. li, however, says the closure order accuses his firm of illegally employing a lawyer who does not have a professional license to practice law. he denies the charge, saying the employee dealt only with administrative, not legal matters .
yitong has handled hundreds of cases dealing with the violation of the rights of ordinary citizens by allegedly corrupt local - level officials, mr li said .
' s most prominent human rights law firms is fighting a government closure order, as authorities here step up a crackdown on troublesome lawyers .
the henan authorities' refusal to process li subin' s paperwork when he moved to beijing made it impossible for him to practice law .
beijing, mar. 6 / christian newswire / - - on march 3, a hearing was held for the beijing yitong law firm which is being forced to shut down for six months by the haidian district judicial bureau. chinaaid sources say the reason behind the forced closure is that authorities are punishing the firm because some of its attorneys signed an open letter in august 2008 asking that independent candidates be allowed to run in the election of the leadership of the beijing lawyers association [ equivalent to the u. s. bar association ], and because the firm has provided representation for a number of human rights cases, including cases of persecution against house church christians .
li said that if he violated the law, the authorities should have targeted him personally with measures such as expulsion from the communist party. he said that lawyers' support for the direct election probably angered the authorities, and that the action against yitong is meant to
kill one person to warn 100 .
liu xiaoyuan (刘晓原), a lawyer at yitong, pointed out that a six - month shutdown was an uncommonly harsh punishment for the alleged violation, and that authorities could have issued warnings or confiscated the earnings resulting from the alleged violation. he believes the authorities' aim is to finish off the firm, and that this is exactly the same way that gao zhisheng' s (高智晟) firm was shut down in 2005. *
gone: gao zhisheng, whose firm was forced to close in 2005, has been missing since police took him away three weeks ago .
the firm also has a reputation for taking up legal cudgels on behalf of ordinary citizens who claim to have been mistreated by the authorities .
the government says the forced closure is because the firm allowed christian attorney, li subin, to practice law without a license. however, the firm says that li subin, who worked as deputy director of the firm, served only in administrative duties and acted as a legal advisor. although he has been a fully qualified and licensed attorney since 1991, he never acted as an attorney at the firm because the government refused to renew his license after he brought a lawsuit in 2001 against the louyang city bureau of justice and louyang bar association for collecting illegal lawyer license registration fees. even though li subin won the suit, his license has been refused renewal ever since, and he has had no explanation from authorities for the reason .
the six - month shutdown sends a chilling warning to all lawyers that the authorities will not tolerate any perceived challenges to their power. this is not the path to a rule of law .
the forced closure of the firm is the most recent in a series of government tactics to shut down the firm in order to stop their human rights defense work. in october, government officials pressured the firm to fire some of their attorneys, including li subin, because they signed the open letter asking for the free election of the leadership of beijing lawyers association. the implication for a free election is that the member lawyers would be able to choose their own leadership rather than accept the leaders the government chooses .
the shutdown is effective from march 13 to september 12, 2009. the decision stipulates that at the end of this period, the firm must re - apply in order to resume operation, and that it can reopen only after inspection by the bureau. the firm is given 60 days to appeal the decision and three months to bring an administrative suit against the bureau .
at the same time, he says, a number of lawyers in his practice have been very vocal in a campaign to hold free elections for the leadership of the beijing law association, the state - controlled local bar .
their campaign has gained the support of several beijing lawyers and has been a cause of alarm for the ccp controlled beijing bureau of justice and beijing lawyer’s association. in sept. 2008, li and the other lawyers involved left yitong under duress .
gao zhisheng, whose own law firm was closed by official fiat in 2005, has not been seen since police took him from his family home three weeks ago. barefoot lawyer yuan xianchen was put on trial last month for
inciting subversion of state power
after having assisted land rights activists. zheng enchong, a veteran rights defense lawyer, is under house arrest for signing
charter 08 ,
a public appeal for democratic reforms .
“the six - month shutdown sends a chilling warning to all lawyers that the authorities will not tolerate any perceived challenges to their power. this is not the path to a rule of law, ” said sharon hom, executive director of hric .
the yitong partnership is well known for having represented some of china' s most famous dissidents, including hu jia, an aids activist who received the european parliament' s top human rights award last year and is now serving a three - year sentence for inciting subversion .
the lawyer in question, li subin, a former deputy director of the firm, was denied the chance to renew his professional license by the provincial authorities in henan, whose judicial bureau he had successfully sued for overcharging .
the six - month shutdown sends a chilling warning to all lawyers that the authorities will not tolerate any perceived challenges to their power. this is not the path to a rule of law ,
said sharon hom, the group & apos; s executive director .
the firm was also involved in the yang jia case, the man who was accused of murdering six shanghai police officers with a knife and was executed. his case received international media attention for the sympathy that chinese citizens felt for him .
yitong has been a leading light in the
rights defense movement ,
through which
increasing numbers of citizens are using the legal system as a means of redress for violations of their rights ,
states a 2007 report by human rights in china, a new york - based watchdog group .
these cases
show there is a long way to go to the rule of law ,
which chinese leaders say is their goal, says ho .
lawyers are treated as subservient to the system. any who are not obedient run the risk of being penalized .
after the association issued a
stern statement
last september warning that the campaign was
illegal
and
a total repudiation of china' s current [ system for managing lawyers ], judicial system, and even political system ,
li asked several of his activist colleagues to resign from yitong .
li, a prominent defense lawyer, was previously unable to renew his license in henan province, where he was then based, after he sued the local judicial bureau for overcharging lawyers' registration fees and won. li then went to beijing and joined yitong as an administrator and assistant to other lawyers .
only li jisong, the director of the law firm, was allowed to attend the public hearing on march 3 at 9: 30 a. m. in north room b101, office area no. 1 of haidian district people' s government of beijing municipality (address: 17, changchunqiao road, haidian district, beijing). the other 12 lawyers and workers from the firm were forbidden to attend the hearing, even though the hearing was public and they filed official request forms asking permission to attend immediately after receiving the hearing notice on february 23. the government officials said there was no room, because all the seats were filled by february 25. in fact, the government deliberately filled all the seats with haidian district bureau of justice officials. presiding over the two - hour hearing was a committee organized by the bureau of justice. the committee has not yet released a decision .
the lawyer in question, li subin, had his license suspended after he filed a case against henan province’s judicial bureau for overcharging legal fees. he was illegally detained for 391 days before eventually winning the case. however, he still has not been able to get his license back. li then moved to beijing and joined yitong as an administrative assistant .
li believes the closure order, which was issued five months after the event in question, is just a front. he feels the real reason behind the closure is a number of controversial cases the firm has taken up, such as the case of hu jia, winner of the european parliament’s top human rights award in 2008 and who is now serving a three - and - a - half year sentence for supposedly “inciting subversion. ”
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the closure order, which activists here say is unlikely to be overturned at the hearing, is part of
a wider effort to stifle and intimidate lawyers who aspire to defend human rights and the public interest ,
says albert ho, chairman of the china human rights lawyers concern group in hong kong .
this is really a very serious matter .
the result, according to the report, is that
lawyers are increasingly being attacked for defending them .
chinese lawyers must renew their licenses every year, a regulation that critics say offers officials great scope to put pressure on them .
the system is designed to intimidate ,
argues mr. ho .
li jinsong says that after having gone up against the shanghai police, a senior beijing judge, and the minister of railways among others, either in court or in forthright public denunciations ,
a lot of powerful officials hate me .
we have been involved in many cases that challenged the authorities ,
he points out .
they are killing the chicken to warn the monkeys ,
he says ,
trying to close us down to suppress other lawyers .
if the judicial authorities insist on stage - managed elections to the bar ,
it raises very troubling questions about the capacity for independent lawyers to develop in china ,
worries sharon hom, executive director of human rights in china .
we have to ask whether it is possible to defend rights if there is no independent bar association ,
she adds .
china has appeared truculent recently in the face of challenges to its human rights record. beijing reacted to a critical report by the un committee against torture last november by angrily denying all the charges, and rejected almost all the recommendations that other countries made during a review of its record earlier this month by the un human rights council .
internationally, china denies there is any problem, and domestically it takes punitive action against those who point out the problems ,
says ms. hom .
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li subin told human rights in china (hric) that the decision is not only “a sorrow for all chinese lawyers but also a sorrow for all chinese people. ”
hric hong kong office: gpo, p. o. box 1778, hong kong
we are concerned that this seems to be part of a pattern of misuse of judicial and regulatory process to punish lawyers who take on matters deemed sensitive by the authorities .
we are concerned that this seems to be part of a pattern of misuse of judicial and regulatory process to punish lawyers who take on matters deemed sensitive by the authorities ,
said sharon hom, executive director of human rights in china (hric) .
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this was just a pretext - the main reason they wanted to close us down is that some corrupt leaders are trying to protect their names and don' t want us to bring cases against them ,
he said .
the agency that issued the order - the judicial department in the beijing' s haidian district - has declined to comment .
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mr li had represented chen guangcheng, a blind rights activist jailed for disrupting traffic and damaging property, charges critics say were concocted by officials angry at his exposure of forced late - term abortions in his hometown in shandong province .
he was unable to renew his own legal licence after winning a case against a judicial bureau in central henan province over overcharging lawyers & apos; registration fees .
the chinese government has been cracking down on dissent in a year marked by several sensitive anniversaries, including 20 years since troops bloodily put down pro - democracy protests around beijing & apos; s tiananmen square on june 4, 1989 .
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yitong law firm ( 忆通 ) is a law firm in the people 's republic of china engaged in defense of human rights . its clients include hu jia and chen guangcheng . in february 2009 chinese authorities announced that the firm would be shut down for six months , ostensibly because an unlicensed lawyer was practicing there . the accused lawyer , li subin , was a former deputy director of the firm who had been denied the chance to renew his professional license by the provincial authorities in henan after he had successfully sued the henan judicial bureau for overcharging . the managing partner of the firm , li jinsong , denied that li subin had engaged in the practice of law claiming he was only engaged in administrative duties and charged that the government authorities " are distorting facts ... to get revenge " for the way the firm 's lawyers have criticized or defied government agencies . 
yitong law firm (忆通) is a law firm in the people's republic of china engaged in defense of human rights. its clients include hu jia and chen guangcheng. in february 2009 chinese authorities announced that the firm would be shut down for six months, ostensibly because an unlicensed lawyer was practicing there. the accused lawyer, li subin, was a former deputy director of the firm who had been denied the chance to renew his professional license by the provincial authorities in henan after he had successfully sued the henan judicial bureau for overcharging. the managing partner of the firm, li jinsong, denied that li subin had engaged in the practice of law claiming he was only engaged in administrative duties and charged that the government authorities " are distorting facts... to get revenge " for the way the firm's lawyers have criticized or defied government agencies.
yitong law firm (忆通) is a law firm in the people's republic of china engaged in defense of human rights. its clients include hu jia and chen guangcheng. in february 2009 chinese authorities announced that the firm would be shut down for six months, ostensibly because an unlicensed lawyer was practicing there. the accused lawyer, li subin, was a former deputy director of the firm who had been denied the chance to renew his professional license by the provincial authorities in henan after he had successfully sued the henan judicial bureau for overcharging. the managing partner of the firm, li jinsong, denied that li subin had engaged in the practice of law claiming he was only engaged in administrative duties and charged that the government authorities " are distorting facts... to get revenge " for the way the firm's lawyers have criticized or defied government agencies.