sweet suppression

so i had to shake the glitter out of my hair swiftly on monday morning (while poor ayi was at home cleaning up the crime scene). on the very day that there was already a roundtable scheduled bringing together china's top public interest lawyers to discuss the seemingly tightening climate, we awoke to news of two more lawyers having had their licenses revoked for political reasons. this is just the latest in a string of instances of the license-renewal procedures being used to apply pressure to or punish lawyers who take on cases that the government deems sensitive or unfavourable. some argue that the intention is to intimidate the legal profession into advocating strictly within party lines (and presumably with the party's voice). in the case of tang jitian and liu wei, their efforts to represent a member of the banned spiritual movement falungong resulted in their being banned for life from practicing law. tang sees their punishment as a warning to other lawyes. ahh, sweet suppression. as described in an AP story:

The Beijing Municipal Bureau of Justice posted separate notices Friday on its website announcing that Liu and Tang had lost their licenses. The notices said the pair had "disobeyed court personnel and disrupted order in the courtroom" during an April 2009 trial at the Luzhou Municipal Intermediate People's Court in Sichuan province.

The lawyers say they were illegally videotaped during the trial, interrupted repeatedly by the judge and ordered out of the courtroom by unidentified men. Tang and Liu eventually walked out of the courtroom after they objected to being videotaped — which is illegal in Chinese courtrooms — and the court descended into chaos.

in addition to the seeming illegality of the lawyers' treatment at trial, the process by which tang and liu's fates were decided did not comply with the requisite administrative procedures - such as providing the lawyers an opportunity to see the evidence against them (apparently a letter from the luzhou court to the beijing muncipal justice bureau recommending they be punished) - and is deeply disturbing.

as i see more and more of this happening, and am inspired by the courageous lawyers who continue to advocate for real justice nonetheless, i finally appreciate how suprression can slowly make one more radical. the government's attempt to divide the legal profession into "bad" rights-protective rabble-rousers and "good" commercial or uncontroversial public interest lawyers is a blow to the inegrity of the profession as a whole. all attorneys are rights protective. or should be, whether they are protecting corporate interests or freedom of religion. i see how this tactic can compel even a "good" lawyer to do a little "bad" rights work in order to highlight the incoherency and immorality of this divisive approach.

and yet, even amid the sweet suppression there remain moments of authentic sweetness. i realized this at the aforementioned roundtable. i believe it was martin luther king who said that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice. i have faith that he is right.