Travel ban for lawyer in fugitive’s case
A mainland lawyer, deregistered after taking up the case of one of the Hong Kong fugitives who were captured while trying to flee to Taiwan, has been barred on national security grounds from leaving the country to attend an American fellowship programme.
Lu Siwei was delisted along with Ren Quanniu earlier this year by mainland provincial judicial authorities after handling cases relating to the 12 fugitives arrested as they attempted to escape prosecution over their roles in Hong Kong’s anti-government protests.
On Saturday, border security guards stopped Lu at the Shanghai Pudong International Airport as he was about to board Delta Air Lines’ DL288 flight for Seattle, the lawyer told the Post, after news of the incident surfaced on social media.
“They told me I could not leave,” Lu said, adding while he was not formally detained, and was eventually let go, the authorities prevented him from using his mobile phone for two hours. “In a way, they restricted my personal liberty,” he said.
The lawyer said he had earlier been barred from leaving the mainland when he wanted to attend a legal forum in Hong Kong at the start of 2020.
He believed his involvement in the fugitives’ case might have triggered mainland authorities to extend the travel ban to prevent him from attending the academic programme, which he said would not be covering sensitive topics.
A former human rights lawyer, Lu also had his professional licence revoked in January this year, after he took up the fugitives’ case. The dozen were intercepted by the Chinese coastguard at sea in August last year, after they departed from a Hong Kong dock on a speedboat towards Taiwan.
Most of them were subsequently charged with offences relating to illegal crossing and jailed.
The family of one of the accused, Quinn Moon, appointed Lu, but the lawyer never got to represent her as the mainland authorities said the defendant had picked another lawyer.
However, Lu continued to speak out on the case. In January, the judicial authorities in Sichuan, where Lu was based, revoked his licence, finding that he had “repeatedly made inappropriate remarks on the internet” for a long period of time, without mentioning his role in the fugitives’ case.
Lu was meant to catch the USbound flight on Saturday after being invited to attend the Humphrey Programme – a 10month academic scheme – as a visiting fellow.
The programme, founded in 1978, aims to further enrich experienced professionals from countries undergoing development, according to its website.
While the programme was funded by the US Department of State, Lu argued the fellowship was far from being a sensitive one and covered a wide range of areas.
Lu, who was enrolled in the legal field of the programme, said a number of mainland officials had previously taken part in the scheme’s environmental discipline. Asked if he was concerned whether authorities might rein him in further given the national security grounds cited, Lu said he was not worried.
“If they would like to have me arrested, they would have done so a long time ago,” he said. But he added the loss of his licence had taken a toll on him.