Tang Jingling
Three Rights Advocates Are Sentenced To Prison In China
Chinese activists’ subversion trial likened to a battle between justice and evil
I believe there are definitely people who, in good faith, have come to this conviction by reason and logic. Irrespective of the situation, my answer to them is: If you want to say that this is a crime, then I am happy to continue to commit it. Just as the line from the legal proverb goes, “When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes duty
Tang Jingling is a human rights lawyer whose clients have included villagers fighting corruption and victims of land appropriation. His lawyer's license was suspended in 2006, after which he became involved in a non-violent civil disobedience movement in China. He has been subjected to frequent police harassment and interrogation. In 2012 he was detained for five days following his work investigating the death of human rights defender Mr Li Wangyang in suspicious circumstances in a hospital in Hunan Province. In January 2016 he was sentenced to five years in prison for promoting non-violent civil disobedience in China.
Chinese HRDs face intimidation, harassment, house arrest, abductions, torture and imprisonment. Despite President Xi Jinping's repeated emphasis on 'rule of law', human rights lawyers are routinely subjected to various forms of surveillance and pressure, including harassment, house arrest and imprisonment. Many of the most well-known human rights defenders in China are lawyers who have been punished by the state for attempting to hold authorities accountable to the country's own laws.
