Wang Quanzhang

China

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Wang Quanzhang is a human rights lawyer who has a history of taking on sensitive cases, including defending Falun Gong practitioners, investigative journalists and democracy advocates.

On 28 January 2019, the Tianjin Municipal No.2 Intermediate People’s Court found prominent human rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang guilty of “subversion of state power” and sentenced him to 4 years and 6 months in prison and 5-year deprivation of political rights.

In August 2015, police arrested Wang Quanzhang in the context of the ‘709 crackdown’. He disappeared for months before he was charged in January 2016 with ‘subversion of state power’. Before the start of the trial, Wang Quanzhang had been held incommunicado for over three years and without any form of due process. He was not given access to an independent legal counsellor of his choosing and has been denied access to his family lawyer, who was allegedly intimidated into withdrawing from his case.

Wang Quanzhang was released on 5 April 2020. It has been reported that Wang Quanzhang has yet to return home to meet his family in Beijing after being released from prison. Wang Quanzhang was escorted to a property he owns in Jinan. He has to remain in quarantine for 14 days as a precaution against the coronavirus, according to his wife Li Wenzu. Li Wenzu fears that the Chinese authorities are using the corona crisis as an excuse to hold Wang Quanzhang under de facto house arrest indefinitely. Lawyers for Lawyers will continue to monitor his case until he is released immediately and unconditionally.  

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