These Are The Portraits Of Eight Of The Rights Lawyers Rounded Up In China On 'Black Friday'

Free the Rights Defense Lawyers, by Badiucao for CDT

Cartoonist Badiucao has drawn portraits of eight of the dozens of human rights lawyers and activists who were rounded up by police in China on July 10, which some netizens are now calling Black Friday.

The lawyers pictured include Wang Yu, Sui Muqinq, Liu Shihui, Liu Xiaoyuan, Wang Quanzhang, Zhou Shifeng, Li Heping and Liu Sixin. The Ministry of Public Security has said the detainees are “suspected of illegally organizing paid protests, hyping public sentiment and fabricating rumors on the Internet to sway court decisions.” From a Xinhua report:

According to a statement from the Ministry of Public Security published on Saturday, the suspects consists of lawyers as the core organizers and social media celebrities and petitioners, who are in charge of planning and implementation.

The statement accused the group, led by Fengrui Law Firm, of disrupting public order and seeking profits by illegally hiring protesters and swaying court decisions in the name of “defending justice and public interests.”

Since July 2012, the group has organized more than 40 controversial incidents and severely disrupted public order, it added. [Source]

All of the lawyers detained have worked on human rights cases in recent years. A full list of those detained is being updated via Google Docs (Chinese).