law - China's expanding legal aid system

Karen I. Tse of Bridges to Justice explores in the International Herald Tribune the giant advances China has made in setting up 2,800 centers for free legal aids. "In a little under a decade, China has established more than 2,800 legal aid centers - an unprecedented accomplishment for any country - whose basic mission is to provide fair and competent legal representation to all of China's citizens regardless of ethnicity, gender or economic status," she writes.

"Though many laws already existed on the books - covering the rights of
defendants and prisoners, and the safety of lawyers - they are not always
upheld, particulary in rural and remote regions. Indeed, there have been
complaints that lawyers sometimes become the targets of the very abuses they are
fighting against."

Also in not-that remote Shanghai, I must add, where the Zhou Zhengyi-case brought the lawyer taking up the case of the evicted residents got into severe problems.