The massive arrest and detainment of several known civil rights lawyers in China, became kbown as the 709 Crackdown of China (or the 709 Case).
This action was designed to display the Chinese Communist Party ultimate power through the government’s preoccupation with public order and maintaining security in Chinese contemporary history.
Instigated in the summer of 2015, the Crackdown included a nationwide crackdown and detention of human rights activists and legal professionals from China. The “709 crackdown” began on July 9, 2015, and has since been ongoing.
The Chinese civil and human rights movement
A loose confederation of Chinese intellectuals, attorneys, and legal specialists known as the Weiquan movement fights for the people’s civil rights via activism and litigation.
Despite CCP opposition, the movement has been going strong since the early 2000s, holding rallies, seeking reform through the media and court system, defending victims of human rights abuses, and writing appeal letters.
The Weiquan movement of civil and human rights lawyers in China campaigns for property and housing rights, environmental protection, religious liberty, press freedom, and defence of the rights of fellow advocates facing disbarment or jail.
The 709 crackdown was a devastating blow to China’s rights-defense movement, according to Human Rights Watch’s Yaqiu Wang. The movement saw a considerable contraction after the attorneys were jailed, disbarred, and forced to undergo monitoring.
The crackdown that began in 2015 resulted in the detention of over 300 individuals. Listed below are a few of the prominent figures impacted by the crackdown.Renowned human rights lawyer Li Heping was kidnapped in 2015. After that, in April 2017, he received a suspended sentence and was released in May 2017.
In August 2015, Wang Quanzhang was detained. From December 2018 to January 2019, he stood trial for subversion of state authority. He was sentenced to 4.5 years in jail and will be released on 4 April 2020.
For a two-week COVID-19 isolation period, the authorities relocated him to his Jinan home; his wife suspects the government used the outbreak as a pretext to keep him in house arrest.
A lawyer named Wang Yu was granted bail in 2016 after facing charges of encouraging the overthrow of the government.
“Super Vulgar Butcher” (Wu Gan), a human rights activist, received an eight-year prison term in December 2017.
Smuggled out of China to Thailand in January 2018, Xiang Li was an activist who was banned from leaving the country during the crackdown.
Defending Wang Quanzhang and loudly demanding Xi’s departure and reforms in the political and legal systems, Yu Wensheng was sentenced to four years in prison and deprived of political rights for three years on 17 June 2020, according to a report from Deutsche Welle.
