06/01/22
On December 16, 2021, the Beijing Municipal Justice Bureau issued an administrative penalty decision to permanently revoke human rights lawyer Liang Xiaojun’s license, citing his expressions on Twitter and Weibo that refer to Falun Gong as a religious practice and his derogatory reference to Marxism as “Marxist Poison.” However, these are not the real reasons why the Chinese government took down yet another lawyer. In 2021, China disbarred 7 human rights lawyers; since the 709 Crackdown in 2015, over 40 human rights lawyers have been disbarred. – The Editors
To no one’s surprise, at the end of 2021, I received a letter of administrative punishment from the Beijing Justice Bureau. My lawyer’s license had been permanently revoked.
Twenty years ago, I became a lawyer despite having never imagined I would do so; twenty years later, my career as a lawyer came to an end.
I accept such events in stride, regardless of whether or not I have any say in them.
I
Seen as a business venture, my 20-year legal career wasn’t much of a success.
I’ve never been very business-minded and basically had no concept of finance growing up. I like a simple life and don’t have much desire for luxury or status.
My parents worked at a college, and I was assigned to be a lecturer upon graduating from university. Starting in 2000, when I graduated from the China University of Political Science and Law with a double bachelor’s degree, my life experiences revolved around education, from a student at one school to a teacher at another. All I could imagine in my future was that it would be in academia.
But even in 2000, a double bachelor’s degree was not enough to find a job in a university, and nor was I willing to go back to the place I left behind. So when I graduated I cobbled together a resume and sent it out with low expectations. I got a few interviews, but they all amounted to nothing due to my lack of experience.
At a loss as to what to do, I remembered that some fellow students and I had tested for and received a lawyers’ qualification certificate in 1999. I thus applied for a job offering with a law firm.
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