China: Government Must End Crackdown on Lawyers

Gema K. Gonzalez

09-01-2006

Soc. 202



Human Rights Watch issued an article that follows up on the previous article I had summarized; however, this article goes further in depth about what the Chinese government has been doing to active lawyers in China. According to this article, the Chinese government has been illegally attacking and going after active legal lawyers around rural China. Most of the lawyers that have been attacked are well-known and have represented big cases in which peoples? rights had been violated. The article mentions two lawyers; Gao Zhisheng and Chen Guangcheng, both of whom were accused of criminal activity. When other lawyers came to their defense, they were also tainted or have been missing. The reason China is behaving this way is because they do not fully accept the Rule of Law in their nation state. If Rule of Law existed in China then the law would prevail and people would not have to worry about such circumstances arising.



My reaction to this article is not surprising given China?s communist history and disciplinary character. It seems that in such nation-states, the government is always out to prove to the public that they are the ones running the show. In America we could not imagine being treated like this. However, such injustices do occur world-wide and especially in country?s where the population does not have a voice. It is people like Gao and Chen who get punished for trying to do the right thing.



Source: "China: Government Must End Crackdown on Lawyers." Human Rights Watch. 2006.

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/08/23/china14064_txt.htm