Authorities have withdrawn the licence of Chinese lawyer and human rights activist Yu Wensheng following the publication of an open letter critical of President Xi Jinping.
"I was expecting it because in recent years I was involved in many human rights cases," said the lawyer, who has fought numerous cases on behalf of dissidents and activists.
On Monday, the Bureau of Justice sent him a notice saying his licence was being revoked on grounds of Yu currently not being employed at any law firm, Efe news reported.
"It is a trick by the government," claimed the lawyer, maintaining that the authorities have been pressuring different law firms against hiring him.
For this reason, and in order not to create "problems" for other colleagues, Yu recently decided to begin necessary proceedings to create his own law firm, however, the authorities have blocked his efforts, he added.
To recover his licence, Yu will have to take an exam organised by the Bureau of Justice.
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The lawyer suspected that the revocation of his licence was a reprisal for publishing an open letter in which he claimed that President Xi was not fit to continue as President for extending totalitarian control over the country.
In the letter, published days before the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China that was held in October last year, Yu called for reforms in the party for a China that had "freedom, democracy, human rights, and the rule of law".
Under the leadership of Xi, who came to power in March 2013, the Chinese authorities have suppressed some of the most prominent human rights lawyers in the country, such as Xu Zhiyong, founder of the New Citizens' Movement, who was sentenced to four years in prison in 2014 amid growing criticism from the international community.
Towards the end of 2017, the non-profit Human Rights Watch criticised the Chinese authorities starting a fresh wave of pressures and threats against law firms committed to the defence of human rights.
In 2015, China witnessed a huge wave of repression against human rights lawyers, with hundreds of them being held and, according to them, tortured.
--IANS
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