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At 11:09 pm on July 11, 2015, the Ministry of Public Security published the following announcement on its official "Strike the Four Evils, Eliminate the Four Harms" Sina Weibo:
- Sina Weibo Begins Censoring Names of Lawyers Wang Yu and Li Heping
- Sina Weibo Hides Censorship of Lawyers Being "Disappeared" on "Black Friday"
- Sina Weibo Censors "Lawyer Chang Boyang" and "Lawyer Jiang Tianyong"
That post linked to a 4,000+ character article co-authored by Huang Qingchang (黄庆畅) from the People's Daily and Zou Wei (邹伟) from Xinhua entitled "Ministry of Public Security Uncovers "Rights Defense" Plot" (公安部揭开“维权”事件黑幕). Some excerpts:[Ministry of Public Security Uncovers "Rights Defense" Plot] Over the past few days, the Ministry of Public Security has directed law enforcement agencies in Beijing elsewhere in a coordinated action to smash major criminal gang that used the Beijing Fengrui Law Firm as a platform to organize, plot, and hype-up over 40 sensitive incidents and severely disturb social order. A criminal enterprise has been brought to light comprising a large, well-organized, and tightly coordinated group of "rights defense" lawyers, provocateurs, and petitioners.
【公安部揭开"维权"事件黑幕】近日，公安部部署指挥北京等地公安机关集中行动，摧毁以北京锋锐律师事务所为平台，先后组织策划炒作40余起敏感案事件、严重扰乱社会秩序的重大犯罪团伙。一个由"维权"律师、推手、"访民"相互勾连，组织严密、人数众多、分工精细的犯罪团伙浮出水面…
Why is that at the scenes of a series of recent major public incidents time and again lawyers step in to take the lead in creating disturbances and masses of "petitioners" hold up signs stirring up trouble? Why is it that outside the courthouses in a string of sensitive cases time and again we have seen trial judges and government officials become the targets of slanderous attacks and online vigilanteism? Why is that in a series of cases where people are behind the scenes making mountains out of molehills, there is always a group of people stirring up trouble and hidden hands manipulating the situation?
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Criminal suspects Zhai Yanmin, Wu Gan, and Liu Xing have provided the answers: these are all the work of their "rights defense group."
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"Ever since I joined the group in 2013, as soon as any kind of sensitive domestic event occurred, they would deploy a fixed model and workflow to hype-up the situation," Zhai Yanmin said. "Rights defense" lawyers would typically distribute video and picture of certain sensitive events to their Weixin groups, along with certain polemical and inciting opinions. If the event failed to generate enough interest, the "rights defense" lawyers would go directly to the scene of the event. At that time, certain people would organize "petitioners," who would go to the scene to express "calls for support" under the guise of seeking to learn what really happened, and thereby draw the attention and interest of the general public.
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Where did the funding for these "calls for support" come from? Zhai Yanmin and Liu Xing have confessed: every time there was a campaign to call for support, they would solicit donations online, and sometimes would receive financial support from abroad. Petitioners from all over would receive payments and subsidies if they wanted to go somewhere to call for support. Zhai Yanmin said "During some activities the lawyers group would give us some money, and I would give some of it to the people participating in the call for support, and I would keep some for myself."
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According to police officers involved in the case, whenever a sensitive case happened to pop up, these "die hard faction" lawyers would openly oppose the courts in the courts and online, and would maneuver behind the scenes to direct and incite stirring up trouble and shore up the organization of petitioners outside the courts and online to voice calls for support and stir up trouble, create echo chambers in China and overseas, exploit reciprocal relationships, and become the direct driving forces behind hyping-up sensitive events.
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As for the methods used by agents of the Fengrui Law Firm to hype up cases, many criminal suspects described them as "New, Rare, Special."
New means needing new approaches so that lawyers needed follow legal process as had been the case formerly. Zhou Shifeng once described it to Zhai Yanmin this way: "The law enforcement agencies obey the police, the courts obey the judges, whatever they say goes and no one dares oppose them. That's unacceptable. What's needed is to be somewhat willful, don't just do as they say, and handle things in accordance with our own aspirations.
Rare means being able to get some "rare individuals" like Wu Gan to appear. Make use of the "special aptitude" of these individual who "have the courage and the will to fight," to achieve things that average people couldn't achieve. For example, Wu Gan once put the face of a female cadre onto the body of a naked model, and shared it online with the tag "Sleeping Every Day." He also once set up a "mourning hall" for a senior leader in front of a courthouse gate.
Special means certain special methods, such as making online and offline calls for people to pay attention to the cases they are representing; filing reports and complaints against judges, police, and government officials while calling on Internet users to engage in online vigilantism, all in order to put pressure on them; organizing parties to disputes and their friends and family as well as outsiders to besiege judicial agencies in order to exert pressure on them, and achieve proxy results beyond that which would normally have been through the legal system.
一系列热点事件的现场，为何屡屡出现律师挑头闹事、众多“访民”举牌滋事？一系列敏感案件的庭外，为何屡屡出现主审法官、主管官员被诋毁攻击、人肉搜索？一系列案事件被炒热的背后，为何总有一批人兴风作浪，总有一只恶意操纵之手若隐若现？
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犯罪嫌疑人翟岩民、吴淦、刘星给出了答案：这都是他们“维权圈”里的人干的。
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“从我２０１３年进入这个圈子，只要国内发生一些敏感事件，他们就按这种固定的模式和流程进行炒作。”翟岩民说。“维权”律师经常在微信群里发某个敏感事件的视频或照片，以及一些极具煽动性的看法。如果事件没有炒起来，“维权”律师就会直接到现场去。这时，就会有一些人组织“访民”，打着追求事实真相的幌子去现场“声援”，以此引起社会关注和热议。
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“声援”活动的资金从何而来？翟岩民、刘星等人供述：每次有声援活动的时候，他们会在网上募捐，有时也会得到境外资助。各地的访民谁想去声援，都能得到一些报酬和补助。“有些活动，律师群体也会给我们一些钱，我会把钱分给去参加声援活动的人，自己留下一部分。”翟岩民说。
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办案民警介绍，遇有敏感案事件，这些“死磕”律师在庭内、网上公开对抗法庭，并幕后指使挑头滋事骨干组织访民在庭外、网下声援滋事，内外呼应，相互借力，成为炒作敏感案事件的直接推动力。
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对于锋锐所律师代理炒作案件的做法，多名犯罪嫌疑人将其描述为“新、奇、特”：
新，就是要有新思路，让律师不要像以往那样按照法律程序走。“在公安机关听警察的，在法庭听法官的，他们说什么是什么、不敢反抗，那样是不行的。要强势一些，不要听他们的，按照自己的意愿来处理。”周世锋曾这样告诉翟岩民。
奇，就是能请到一些像吴淦这样的“奇人”。发挥这种人“敢冲敢打”的“特长”，做出一些常人做不出的事。比如，吴淦曾经把一女干部头像贴在裸体模特模型上，在网上直播“每日一睡”；也曾在法院门口给某高院领导“设灵堂”。
特，就是用一些特别的方式，例如，在网上网下声援炒作围观他们代理的案件；举报、投诉主审法官、办案民警和当地官员，号召网民对他们人肉搜索，给他们施压；组织案件当事人、亲友以及不相干的人围攻政法机关，以此向政法机关施压，达到在正常法律制度内无法达到的代理效果。
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那么，这些“维权”律师、推手和“访民”在一次次“维权”炒作中能获取什么好处？他们这样做是否还有更深层的目的？
黄力群、翟岩民、吴淦、刘星等人供述，他们的目的就是扬名获利、制造社会混乱。这种炒作模式之下，每一个环节的参与者都有利可图——
对于律师而言，本身有一定的社会地位，他们介入后使得事件、案件的关注度更高，造成的社会影响更大，律师也会因此提高自己的知名度，如果能代理还能挣代理费。
对于律所里的非律师人员，例如吴淦，“在炒作敏感事件中，既提高了名气，扩大了影响力，而且在每次募捐中借机敛财，落下了不少钱。”又如，负责向境外网站发“声援”新闻的人员，“他们发完东西署自己的名字，那些网站的人会找到他们，给他们钱。”
对于“访民”而言，尽管与这些敏感事件没有关系，但他们参与其中，首先能够借机让自身诉求得到律师的援助；其次，能够引起自己家乡政府的关注，对于解决自身诉求有利；同时，还能得到一些经济方面的利益，除了差旅费实报实销之外，还能得到数百元的补助，如果被拘留还有“拘留补贴”。
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目前，周世锋、刘四新、黄力群、王宇、王全璋、包龙军等多名犯罪嫌疑人被公安机关依法刑事拘留。另据警方披露，周世锋等人涉嫌其他严重违法犯罪。案件还在进一步侦办中。
