Four men already had been convicted of murder in southeastern China when a fifth person confessed to the crime. But when lawyers demanded to review case documents to clear the men’s names, the court stonewalled. So the lawyers unfurled banners outside the venue.

They protested for days, alongside social activists who insulted the top judge, and uploaded pictures online.
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Authorities say these lawyers have strayed far beyond their professional role into illegal activism aimed at sabotaging the country’s legal system. …

Since late May, police across China have detained and called in at least 215 rights lawyers and social activists, most of them during the past week or so. State propaganda has kicked into high gear to denounce them as rabble-rousers, criminal gangs, profit-seeking opportunists.

Wisconsin’s John Doe persecutions have been struck by that state’s Supreme Court. We’ll see how long that lasts before our own Left starts up again.

In the meantime, our own national Left’s loudly protected IRS continues to persecute Americans: those who dare to speak contrary to the Left’s approved speech—all those exposures of personal and personal tax information, all those stonewalls of tax status applications for particular groups who would dare speak contrary to the Left’s approvals. The same IRS continues to refuse to return seized funds to those from whom the money was…confiscated…under patently false pretenses, even after this IRS said they would stop the confiscations.