A Chinese lawyer who once represented dissident artist Ai Weiwei was sentenced to jail for 12 years for fraud by a Beijing court on Thursday, as part of a continuing crackdown on lawyers who take on civil rights cases.
The sentencing of Xia Lin follows an annus horribilis for China’s community of lawyers who are willing to defend dissidents, religious practitioners and the wide array of citizens harassed by the state. Hundreds of lawyers were rounded up in July last year, with several of the most prominent sentenced in trials this summer.
It coincides with increasingly routine punishment of individuals who have stood up against the power of the state or the ruling Communist Party, a trend that has accelerated under Chinese leader Xi Jinping after several years of relative liberalisation since the beginning of this century.