Patricia Adams: There’s no evidence that deferred prosecution agreements enhance anything other than agency budgets.
Deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs) make a mockery of the criminal justice system. Join Probe International as we get to the root of this problem at our final Grounds for Thought discussion night of the year: Tuesday, November 28 @8PM.
Ensuring public stability has become even more of a priority for President Xi Jinping in the sensitive lead-up time to the CPC Central Committee’s 19th Party Congress scheduled for later this year. Law enforcement and local officials must guard against potential threats as never before, including the threat of disaster. A 7.0-magnitude earthquake in southwest China’s Sichuan province earlier this month saw “earthquake rumours” added to the growing list of bans in recent weeks.
Will the death of China’s best-known pro-democracy activist in state custody embolden the country’s dissident movement despite efforts to erase his memory?
Veteran dissident Hu Jia hospitalized for acute illness under watch of China’s state security police.
“Lawyers in China like Xie Yang are indispensable in ensuring human rights protection and upholding the rule of law in China” reads a statement issued by the International Commission of Jurists calling on Beijing to release Xie, who has reported torture during his incarceration.
It’s World Press Freedom Day and in China that means more restrictions have been announced.
Canadian leading cyber sleuth, Ron Deibert, discusses the use of technology to censor, hack and spy. Trevor Cole for The Globe & Mail.
The trial of Chinese rights lawyer, Xie Yang, who is facing charges for inciting subversion and disrupting court order, was postponed this week after a crowd of supporters, including diplomats, gathered outside the courtroom. China Digital Times reports on Xie’s case – a case which drew international attention after Xie’s account of torture was circulated via worldwide news outlets.
The lack of a formal extradition treaty has not stopped Canada from expelling people to China without assurances they will not be tortured or otherwise mistreated, according to statistics obtained by The Globe and Mail. Former Canadian ambassador to China, David Mulroney, told the newspaper that the “murky and worrisome” justice system people were returning to meant that Canada might be enabling unfair prosecutions.
As China braces itself for the possibility of an omnipotent digital dystopia — a credit rating system aimed at reducing the resources, choices and activities of every citizen to a single trustability score — one Chinese newspaper has revealed a Big Data menace already underway. For a small fee, anyone in China can invade your private data sphere.
In response to the harsh sentencing of a respected lawyer on what many claim are trumped-up charges, the Law Society of Upper Canada, in a public statement released this week, urged the People’s Republic of China to comply with its obligations under international human rights laws, including the United Nations’ Basic Principles on the Role of Lawyers.
Taiwan’s first female president, and its most defiantly democratic, faces increased pressure from Beijing over the island’s national identity. Canada’s “quietude” amidst the ongoing squeeze has been noted.
As we all know now, Xia Lin, a 46-year-old lawyer whose clients have included dissident artist Ai Weiwei and free speech champion Pu Zhiqiang, was sentenced to jail for 12 years — a verdict meant as both payback and warning to China’s human rights lawyers. Legal activist and scholar, Guo Yushan, penned this essay in the lead up to Xia’s sentencing reflecting on the price paid by Xia and his colleagues for work that has been described elsewhere as “all that is hopeful and optimistic about China”.
New academic research and analysis shows President Xi Jinping’s high-profile anti-corruption drive has fallen short of its goal. Citizens blame local graft on the central government rather than regional authorities. The Financial Times reports.
Patricia Adams
Brady Yauch
Dai Qing
Fan Xiao
Lawrence Solomon
Mu Lan
Lisa Peryman
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