Tang Jitian released
China
Lawyers for Lawyers welcomes the news that the Chinese human rights lawyer Tang Jitian was released on 14 January.
Tang had been practicing law in Beijing since July 2007. He took on a lot of human rights cases, including those related to the rights of AIDS patients, the labour camp system, peasants’ property rights, and cases of Falun Gong practitioners. Furthermore, he has been active in advocating for law reform and supporting other lawyers in China.
Tang Jitian was taken by the police on 10 December 2021, before he had been planning to attend an event hosted by the Delegation of the European Union to China on Human Rights Day. He had been incommunicado since then. It is believed that he was detained in secret in Jilin province, where he had been tortured and subjected to inhumane treatment. Before his arrest in December 2021, Tang had been detained and subjected to torture twice before. He has also been prohibited from leaving mainland China several times, on the grounds of “endangering national security”.
In 2010, Tang Jitian’s lawyers’ practice certificates was permanently revoked. However, in the following years Tang still persisted in his work to safeguard human rights and social justice. In 2014, he was arrested and tortured by the police for his work in Falun Gong cases.
Lawyers for Lawyers welcomes the release of Tang Jitian, but remains concerned about the widespread pattern of enforced disappearances in China.