China: Courts used as tools of systematic repression against human rights defenders
Chinese courts are systematically weaponizing vague national security and public order laws to silence human rights defenders, Amnesty International said today in a new report exposing the judiciary’s central role in sustaining the Beijing authorities’ crackdown on fundamental freedoms.
The research briefing, How could this verdict be ‘legal’?, published on China’s National Day, analyses more than 100 official judicial documents from 68 cases involving 64 human rights defenders over the past decade. It details how Chinese courts are rubber-stamping convictions against peaceful activists, journalists, lawyers, and ordinary citizens, often on the basis of their words, associations or international contacts.
