President Hu Jintao

People's Republic of China
Zhongnanhai

Xichengqu

Beijing

People's Republic of China

08 November 2006

Dear  President Hu,

Re: Cases of Lawyers Gao Zhisheng and Chen Guang Cheng

We are writing on behalf of the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute in connection with the detention of lawyers and human rights defenders, Mr Gao Zhinsheng and Mr Chen Guang Cheng.

In its role as a dual membership organisation, comprising 30,000 individual lawyers and over 195 Bar Associations and Law Societies, the International Bar Association (IBA) influences the development of international law reform and shapes the future of the legal profession. Its Member Organisations cover all continents. The IBA’s Human Rights Institute works across the association, helping to promote, protect and enforce human rights under a just rule of law, and to preserve the independence of the judiciary and the legal profession worldwide.

It has been widely reported that lawyers Gao Zhisheng and Chen Guang Cheng have faced months of harassment, intimidation, unlawful detention and physical assault as a result of their professional activities as human rights defenders. In August, Mr Gao was reportedly detained on suspicion of engaging in ‘unspecified criminal activity’. His detention appears to be linked to his defense of a number of high profile activists, including Zheng Yichun, a journalist imprisoned for online writings, and Pastor Cai Zhuohua, imprisoned for printing and selling copies of the Bible.

Mr Chen is reported to have been denied access to his lawyers after criminal proceedings were instituted against him last year. He was arrested following an investigation he was conducting into claims that local officials used illegal practices to enforce population control laws. Members of his defense counsel have allegedly been forcibly prevented from gathering evidence and suffered assault at the hands police officers. His lawyers were later prevented from attending his trial.

These circumstances raise a number of concerns in connection with the rights and safeguards that should be accorded to all legal practitioners in China and elsewhere. Under the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China, approved on 14 March, 2004, Article 33 states that ‘the State respects and preserves human rights’.

We would therefore like to draw your attention to the following Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers adopted by the 8^th United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and Treatment of Offenders in 1990.

Article 1 states that ‘all persons are entitled to call upon the assistance of a lawyer of their choice to protect and establish their rights to defend them in all stages of criminal proceedings’. Article 16 states that governments shall ensure that lawyers are:

(a)    able to perform all of their professional functions without intimidation, hindrance, harassment or improper interference;

(b)   able to travel and to consult with their clients freely both within their own country and abroad; and

(c)    shall not suffer, or be treated with, prosecution or administrative, economic or other sanctions for any action taken in accordance with recognised professional duties, standards and ethics.

Furthermore, Article 23 states that lawyers, like other citizens, are entitled to freedom of expression, belief, association and assembly. In particular, they shall have the right to take part in public discussion of matters concerning the law, the administration of justice and the promotion and the protection of human rights.

We would also like to remind you that lawyers, like any other citizens, enjoy, inter alia, the following protections in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In particular, we would like to draw your attention to the following relevant provisions: Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person (Article 3); no one shall be subject to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile (Article 9); everyone is entitled to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him (Article 10); and everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty (Article 11).

We hereby call on the Chinese government to respond to these claims by conducting prompt, thorough, independent and impartial investigations in order to establish the validity of these claims and take corrective actions. We further call on the Chinese authorities to ensure that all human rights lawyers and defenders in China are able to carry out their legitimate professional and personal activities without fear of abduction or acts of violence in full respect to internationally recognised human rights standards.

We should be grateful to receive your assurances that our concerns will be addressed and investigated as a matter of urgency

Yours sincerely,

Ambassador Emilio Cárdenas

Justice Richard J Goldstone

HRI Co-Chairs 

CC:    Madam Wu Yi, Vice Premier, c/o State Council, Zhongnanhai, Beijing; Mr Xiao Yang, President, Supreme People’s Court, c/o State Council; Honourable Wen Jiabao, State Premier, People’s Republic of China; Mr Yu Ning, President, All China Lawyers Association