Lawyer released on bail denounces head of Fengrui Law Firm

A local court in North China's Tianjin Municipality will soon hear a case against four people, including Zhou Shifeng, chief of the Beijing-based Fengrui Law Firm, on suspicion of subverting State power, the Global Times learned Monday.

Tianjin prosecutors filed a lawsuit against the group on July 15. A week later, Wang Yu, another lawyer with Fengrui Law Firm who was detained in January, was released on bail pending trial.

Wang told the Global Times on Sunday that she felt very "ashamed and remorseful" for what she had done, adding that her legal rights were well protected during her detention.

According to Wang, Zhou is "not a qualified lawyer" in terms of professional skills, legal knowledge and competence in the courtroom. She said what had impressed her most about Zhou was his claim that the firm could accept cases that other people dared not take on.

Zhou recruited many rights lawyers, online celebrities and retired government officials to work at Fengrui, Wang claimed. "He likes to employ lawyers in sensitive cases to hype up these cases, raising the law firm's reputation and earning money by defaming the country's legal system and attacking the government."

Wang said that when she worked at Fengrui Law Firm, she received training in several countries and regions including the UK, Thailand and Hong Kong, and all her expenditures were covered by overseas organizations.

"The training was aimed at utilizing my reputation and influence with petitioners and lawyers to hype up the cases and imbue so called 'universal values' and 'Western democratic rights' in rights lawyers, in a bid to attack the Chinese government."  

The American Bar Association (ABA) announced on July 9 that it had selected Wang as the first recipient of its ABA International Human Rights Award. However, Wang said that she did not acknowledge, approve of or accept the award. "I am Chinese and I love my country … No matter what award that overseas country gives me, their purpose is to attack the Chinese government and achieve their secret goal."

Fengrui Law Firm was broken up in July 2015 after it was found to be serving as a platform for a "criminal gang" that had orchestrated over 40 incidents since July 2012 to disturb social order under the guise of defending rights and justice, the Xinhua News Agency reported in July 2015.