The space for Chinese human rights lawyers is shrinking. Fang Xiangui, a Chinese human rights lawyer who represented the Wenzhou Cross Rights Movement and assisted legal scholar Xu Zhiyong and White Paper Movement documentary filmmaker Chen Pinlin, has gone into exile after calling for EU sanctions against China. He gave an exclusive interview to this station, detailing his reasons for going into exile and his perspective on the situation facing Chinese human rights lawyers.
Fang Xiangui, a human rights lawyer in China for over a decade, participated in a human rights event for the European Union last year. During a meeting with officials, he called for sanctions against China. This information was leaked, forcing him and his family into exile. Fang Xiangui stated that after leaving China, he and his family sought political asylum in the UK. In an exclusive interview with this station, he stated that while working as a human rights lawyer in China, he had traveled to Japan, Taiwan, and various European locations to participate in human rights events, sharing updates on the situation of Chinese human rights lawyers and dissidents. He never expected this would force him into exile.
Fang Xiangui said, "Last year, I participated in an EU human rights event in Brussels, and received two independent reports that our event had been leaked. They also learned about my appeal to members of the EU Parliament to sanction China. I later forgot what I said, but others have shared it. I've participated in many human rights events abroad and have taken many security precautions, including not bringing my phone with me in China and not opening WeChat on my computer. When these events occurred, they were completely unexpected. Although the organizers selected reliable members of parliament and officials to meet with us, there's no way to guarantee absolute safety. The Communist Party now has the power to unite the entire world."
Fangxian Gui worries about the impact of exile, international organizations are afraid to communicate with human rights lawyers
He believes the leaked call for sanctions reflects China's pervasive united front work and infiltration efforts overseas. He believes the incident, in addition to affecting him and his family, will also increase the concerns of international organizations regarding their interactions with Chinese human rights lawyers and impact communication.
Fang Xiangui said, "We used to say that if our country became strong, we wouldn't be bullied. Now I realize that it's because our country is so strong that no one dares to save us. Given the intensity of China's current control, they (international groups) are reluctant to invite Chinese human rights lawyers to come out for discussions. I find this very regrettable, because with even less attention overseas, lawyers working on these cases in China feel very lonely. We feel as if no one is paying attention to what we're doing, and we feel like we're just silent witnesses to history."
Human rights lawyers are increasingly silent. Fang Xiangui: Silence buys space for defense.
Fang Xiangui stated that he has personally witnessed the deteriorating human rights situation in China over the past decade. He noted that when he first began working in the human rights legal community, there was still room for him to defend religious rights cases, such as the cross removal incident in Wenzhou. However, during the 709 crackdown, authorities resorted to kidnapping and other tactics against human rights lawyers and workers, and he himself was arrested and detained more than once. He stated that the authorities' heavy-handed crackdown has silenced the human rights lawyer community in China, but this does not mean that they have given up. A group of human rights lawyers are still quietly defending victims of rights protection incidents, but their approach has changed.
Fang Xiangui said, "China's human rights situation is undoubtedly getting worse. There's been a clear regression during the Xi Jinping era. Human rights lawyers nowadays work on human rights cases, but they don't talk about it. They simply defend the case, not publicly, not accept interviews, and not speak out. Currently, the space for this is still limited. But doing both is very troublesome; it's easy to have your lawyer's license revoked or even arrested. You'll gradually find that many people who defend these human rights cases have their verdicts and defense statements hidden from public view. Honestly, many lawyers are reluctant to share their experiences in depth, which is a serious self-imposed limitation. Judging by the behavior of human rights defenders and lawyers, they've already put themselves in a very heavy shackle."
Fang Xiangui, who devoted himself to human rights work after the June 4th Incident, is most concerned about Chen Pinlin, who documented the White Paper Movement.
Fang Xiangui, an engineering major, explained that she was deeply inspired by a documentary about the 1989 student movement she watched in college and chose to pursue a career in law. She resolved to advocate for the public, specializing in sensitive cases that ordinary lawyers would be afraid to take, such as defending legal scholar Xu Zhiyong and Chen Pinlin, the director of the White Paper Movement documentary. She also expressed a deep attachment to the June 4th Incident and was particularly impressed by Chen Pinlin.
Fang Xiangui said, "Over the past few decades in China, especially since 1989, we've rarely seen such large-scale, collective expressions of political demands. The White Paper Movement was a remarkable act of resistance by a remarkable group of young people. In defending Chen Pinlin, I discovered that his values and philosophies are highly consistent with ours (human rights lawyers). His documentary is of great value in preserving collective protest movements. I particularly admire his courage, and defending him is quite rewarding for me."
He stated that he has never regretted his choice to become a human rights lawyer, believing that only by participating in human rights work could he realize his aspirations. His sudden departure from the forefront of human rights work in China left him most haunted by the cases and defendants he was still working on. However, he believed that by continuing to tell China's human rights story while abroad, he was also contributing to the development of human rights in China.
