Full pdf joint statement | Watch on UN WebTV at 02:08:28
Organization: Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada
Item 3: General debate
Date: 18 September 2025
Speaker: Joseph Doyle
Oral Statement to the 60th Session of the UN Human Rights Council from Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada (LRWC), the International Bar Association, Lawyers for Lawyers, and The Law Society, NGOs in special consultative status, and endorsed by the Asian Lawyers Network, NGO without consultative status
China: Systematic arbitrary detention and enforced disappearances of human rights lawyers and defenders
Mr. President,
Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada, the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute, Lawyers for Lawyers, and the Law Society of England and Wales, with endorsement by the Asian Lawyers Network, are disturbed by China’s continued violations against human rights defenders and lawyers.
For over a decade, China has systematically subjected hundreds of lawyers to disbarment, vilification, criminalization, unfair trials, and arbitrary detention in China for representing their clients and advocating human rights. Those who succeed in leaving China may be subject to transnational repression in other countries, including forced deportation to China.
Numerous lawyers in China have been subjected to incommunicado detention or enforced disappearance while under “residential surveillance at a designated location,” which is often accompanied by torture and ill-treatment. In Hong Kong SAR, human rights lawyers are subject to disbarment or arbitrary detention for publicly upholding human rights and the rule of law.
We urge Council members and observer States to consistently call on China for the release of Chinese human rights lawyers and defenders arbitrarily detained or disappeared. Human rights experts have for years been calling for an independent international mechanism to monitor and report on the situation of human rights in China. We urge the Council to heed this call.
Thank you.
