Chinese authorities effectively disbarred some of the country’s leading civil rights lawyers yesterday, dealing a blow to a group than has done more to hold the Government to account than any other in recent years.

The lawyers described the move as part of a carefully orchestrated government campaign to prevent them from taking on controversial or high-profile cases. They have faced intimidation, threats and violence in the past to deter them from doing so.

The timing of the move is no coincidence. The 20th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown falls on Thursday and the Government is eager to suppress dissenting voices.

Jiang Tianyong, a renowned civil rights lawyer, brings out the battered vermilion book that is his certificate to practise law. Each page is stamped with a 12-month permit.

Times Archive, 1989: Bravery, hatred and ongoing carnage

At noon yesterday, when tanks started moving along the Changan Avenue, I watched as a man in a white shirt ran from a crowd

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Now it is invalid and he is no longer allowed to work. All such licences were due for renewal by May 31. By the close of business that day his permit, along with those of about 20 other lawyers, had expired without a word from the authorities who regulate the legal profession. He told The Times: “For me the most important thing is the law. We should abide by the law. The people who will suffer are not so much the lawyers but the people — those with difficult cases who will no longer have access to our defence services.”

Such cases are those that confront the Establishment. Business or ordinary criminal lawsuits pose little threat. However, cases involving Tibetans accused of unrest or parents whose children were killed when schools collapsed in last year’s earthquake are in a different league.

In such cases a full legal defence may challenge police procedures and the judicial authorities. In addition, the number of cases has risen in recent years as more citizens become aware of their rights.

The loss of Mr Jiang’s licence comes only weeks after he became the first non-government-appointed lawyer to represent a Tibetan charged after last year’s anti-Chinese protests. He said: “There are departments that want to prevent our work. But progress in China’s legal development can be stopped by no one. We lawyers will not stop fighting for our rights. We will not stop taking on cases that the authorities don’t want us to defend.”

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