Lawyers detained in China over courtroom video of prosecutor admitting errors
- Lawyers Zhou Xiaoyun and Nie Min have been detained on suspicion of ‘picking quarrels and provoking trouble’
- Zhou’s own lawyer says the video in question was already in the public arena so it would be inconceivable if Zhou was being detained for circulating clips
The public security bureau of the city of Panjin in the northeastern province of Liaoning, said on Thursday it had detained Zhou, as well as Chengdu-based lawyer Nie Min, on suspicion of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”, a catch-all offence often used by authorities to muzzle dissent.
“The lawyers Nie and Zhou were jointly planning, Nie provided materials, [their client] provided remuneration to Zhou … and [he] published and spread fabricated false information on the internet at home and abroad,” the bureau said in a statement published on its official account on Weibo, an online microblogging platform.
Zhou’s detention in Panjin is connected to his role as a defence lawyer for a group of men accused by the bureau of being loan sharks.
The case opened in June 2020 and the trial drew public attention because of a prosecutor’s statements in court, which were recorded and uploaded to the Chinese courts’ official website for live-streaming trials.
In clips posted online in June 2020, the prosecutor admitted to several procedural errors during the trial and said “the ability and level of our investigators may not have reached the level required by [the] defendants”.
“We are Panjin, we are not a first- or second-tier city,” the prosecutor said.
In the video, prosecutor Sun Wang says: “Among judicial organs, accepting bribes and not getting work done precisely shows that the judicial staff have guaranteed their moral bottom line.”
Beijing-based lawyer Wei Rujiu wrote on WeChat that Zhou posted the clip online and this was the reason for Zhou’s detention, as well as that of Nie.
Wei’s post has since been circulated by many lawyers in China and abroad.
On Thursday, a Chinese media report quoted Zhou’s lawyer Fan Chen as saying the clips of the prosecutor’s speech were already in the public domain and it was inconceivable that they would be used to justify Zhou’s detention.
According to media outlet Shangyou News, Zhou was taken from his home in Guangzhou on July 29 and has since been under residential surveillance, a form of police detention that can last up to six months.
“Where is he now, what is his state, and why was he suspected of provoking trouble? I don’t know, but I hope to understand it during the meeting,” was quoted as saying.
An image of an official document from the Panjin Public Security Bureau notifying Zhou’s relatives that he was under residential surveillance was published on Shangyou News.
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The South China Morning Post could not verify the authenticity of the document. Fan could not be reached for comment and Zhou’s employer, Guangdong Guangqiang law firm, declined to comment.
Fan and Zhou’s other lawyer Zhao Cong were reportedly in Panjin on Tuesday and Wednesday but police refused to meet them, citing epidemic prevention and control, according to local media reports.
“So we took a step back and proposed a video interview but the police said that the video interview could not be carried out immediately because they had to debug the equipment,” Fan was quoted as saying.
“From yesterday to today, the equipment has not been debugged properly. It has been almost two days. Yesterday morning, Panjin police even tried to persuade us to leave – we did not agree.”
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A judicial interpretation issued in September 2013 by the Supreme People’s Court and Supreme People’s Procuratorate expanded the scope of the “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” crime to include cyberspace as a “public place”, according to a 2016 report by a group of Chinese human rights NGOs.
“In expanding the law from the previous application, restricted only to acts in physical locations, authorities have another domestic loophole to punish online expression, including speech that involves critical comments on party leaders or government policies,” the report said.
