In report to parliament, chief justice singles out prominent lawyer’s ‘severe punishment’ as one of top accomplishments.
China has praised punishments given to a prominent human rights lawyer and his associates as one of its legal system’s top accomplishments last year.
In an annual report to China’s parliament, Chief Justice Zhou Qiang singled out Zhou Shifeng , who in August was sentenced to seven years in prison for “subversion”. He said the “severe punishment of the crime of endangering state security” committed by rights defenders was a key achievement in 2016.
Zhou Shifeng’s Fengrui law firm was known for taking on cases considered sensitive by the ruling Communist Party, such as those of dissident scholars, victims of sexual abuse and members of banned religious groups.
Activists and lawyers in China are often accused of being in cahoots with foreign organisations trying to undermine national security and stir up opposition to the government.
In the report, chief justice Zhou also praised President Xi Jingping’s anti-graft campaign, which he said saw t he number of corruption cases tried in China’s courts last year rise by about a third from 2015.
Xi has presided over a much-publicised crackdown on rampant government corruption since coming to power in 2012, with more than one million officials punished in what some compare to a political purge.
