China Said to Threaten Licenses of Human Rights Lawyers

In a marked departure from past practices, Beijing legal authorities have threatened to complicate or deny applications to renew the legal licenses of at least 18 of the city’s best-known civil-rights lawyers, two human-rights advocacy groups have charged.

Many of the lawyers have taken on cases, involving such issues as Tibetan political activism and police brutality, that gained national and even international attention. The advocacy groups, Human Rights Watch and Chinese Human Rights Defenders, called the actions by the legal authorities part of an effort to intimidate the lawyers and their law firms into avoiding sensitive cases.


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