Dharamshala, May 12 - The 21 Chinese lawyers who signed their signature and openly announced that they would provide to Tibetans arrested such legal services as legal representatives and defense lawyers were severely suppressed by the authorities.

Zhou Yongkang, the standing member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and the party secretary of the Central Political and Law Commission, sent a special memo concerning this issue; the law firms where these lawyers are working were forbidden by the bureaus/departments of judicature to accept the entrust by the Tibetans, and the annual inspection and registration of their law firms would also be postponed.

As for the lawyers themselves, the annual inspection and registration for many of them have also been postponed.

Those who signed their signatures but have not participated in the annual inspection yet will also meet with the same fate that theirs will also be postponed.

The President of the Beijing Bar Association claimed that they would use their wisdom to smash the "rice bowl" for those lawyers who signed their names on the statement.

Since the first ten day period of April up to now, one after another the law firms where the lawyers who signed their names are working received the following notice from the Administration Section of Lawyers under Beijing Municipal Bureau of Judicature:


The Kashag released a press statement on 3 April 2008 welcoming the legal services offered to Tibetans by the Chinese lawyers in China.

In its press release the Kashag said, "We are equally encouraged to note that the lawyers, while expressing their serious concern for the well being of the arrested Tibetans, have called upon the concerned Chinese authorities to "obey the constitution, following the legal procedures in dealing with the arrested Tibetans..... no torture throughout interrogation and respect the independence of legal system".

"The Kashag would like to thank all those Chinese lawyers who have taken upon themselves to protect the legal rights of the Tibetans as well as Chinese people and have come forward to save the arrested Tibetans from the onslaught of a regime bent on curbing the fundamental rights of its own people to have a fair and just legal representation."