Le prix Ludovic Trarieux 2016 a été décerné à l'avocate chinoise Wang Yu, membre du cabinet Fengrui (Chine), déjà honoré par le prix des droits de l'homme 2015 du C.C.B.E.

1. Prix International des droits de l'homme Ludovic-Trarieux 2016
Ludovic-Trarieux International Human Rights Prize 2016
Internationalen Ludovic-Trarieux-Menschenrechtspreis 2016
Premio Internazionale per i Diritti Umani Ludovic Trarieux 2016
Ludovic Trarieux Internationale Mensenrechtenprijs 2016
Depuis/Since/Desde/Dal/Sinds 1984
The XXIst "Ludovic-Trarieux" Human Rights
International Prize 2016
awarded to
Wang Yu
(China)

2. XXIst "Ludovic-Trarieux" Human Rights
International Prize 2016
A Jury composed of 22 european lawyers (See names below) coming
from the bars of Paris, Bordeaux, Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels,
Geneva, Luxemburg, Roma, together with the European Bar Human
Rights Institute (IDHAE) and the Union Internationale des Avocats
(UIA) meeting in Athens Bar Association Office on June 4th 2016,
awarded the 21st prestigious Ludovic trarieux Human Rights Prize
to China lawyer Wang Yu.
In choosing Wang, the jury wanted to "hail the courage" of a woman
who “decided that she could no longer keep her mouth shut despite
the danger of speaking out, and chose to expose herself to dangers
in order to defend the rights of women, children and persecuted
minorities”.
Wang Yu , arrested in July 2015, is one of an estimated 250 lawyers
and activists detained in a crackdown since then. She is charged
with "state subversion" and could receive a life sentence.
China accuses Wang and others of using a Beijing law firm as a
front to organise criminal activity. Her husband, a lawyer, is also in
custody while her 16-year-old son is under police surveillance.
A short biography :
Wang Yu, 45, from Ulanhot, Inner Mongolia, has becomed the
“Emblem of China’s Human Rights Crackdown”. As a Chinese human
rights lawyer, she is sadly known for being the first victim to be
detained in the “709 Crackdown”, one of the harshest actions against
the legal profession in China.
Wang Yu began to practice as a lawyer in Beijing in May 2004,
mainly working on commercial cases. Following the Tianjin railway
incident on May 4, 2008, she got into an argument with rail
employees when she was denied entry onto a train even though she
had a ticket. Several unidentified men assaulted Wang Yu. She filed
a complaint with the local police, but seven months later, she was
charged with “intentional assault”. The police officer revenged and on
December 9, 2008, instead of receiving a response to her complaint,
Wang Yu was arrested.On November 24, 2010, after a questionable
legal process, she was sentenced on appeal to 2 years and six
months in prison by the Beijing Railway Transportation Court. While

3. in prison, Wang Yu became aware of widespread torture and
mistreatment of prisoners. Her lawyer’s license was also suspended
afterwards and she was allowed to practice again in late 2012. She
decided “to improve China's human rights system through the legal
system and push for the rule of law."
Between 2011 and 2015, she actively worked as a human rights
lawyer, undertaking challenging legal cases involving clients who
other lawyers feared to represent. Wang Yu represented numerous
victims of human rights violations, in particular, members of
vulnerable groups such as women, children, migrant workers,
disabled people, and ethnic and religious minorities. She also
represented human rights defenders and political dissidents. Among
them:
- Liu Ming, a visually impaired person, in a case known as the
“Beijing First Case Regarding Discrimination against Disability in
Employment” (Beijing, 2013-2014);
- Falun Gong practitioners charged with “Sabotaging Legal
Enforcement by Using Heretical Religion”. Defense of these every
sensitive and politically charged cases certainly increased the risk
that Wang Yu herself would be subject to police retaliation. On 22
April 2015, as she was representing Falun Gong member in Shenhe
District Court, Wang Yu was violently dragged out of court after she
protested to the judge because her female client was beaten.
- Ilham Tohti, a Uyghur activist and economist sentenced to life
imprisonment on separatism-related charges (Xinjiang, 2014);
- Cao Shunli, a woman human rights activist, who after being
abducted at the airport, was charged with “creating disturbance” and
who eventually died in custody in 2014, reportedly following a lack of
adequate medical treatment (Beijing, 2013-2014);
- The “Five Feminists” who were charged in March 2015 with
“picking quarrels and provoking troubles” as they planned a public
awareness campaign against sexual harassment to coincide with
International Women’s Day (Beijing, 2015).
- Fan Mugen, an eviction protester, who was found guilty of
“intentional injury” and sentenced to 8 years of imprisonment after he
attacked members of a demolition gang who came to raze his home
and who assaulted his family (Jiangsu, 2013-2015);

4. - Wu Gan, a prominent cyber activist who worked for Wang’s law
firm, the Beijing Fengrui Law Firm, charged with “picking quarrels
and provoking trouble” and “inciting subversion of state power” after
he supported harassed lawyers working on a death penalty case
involving defendants who had been tortured to confess.
Wang Yu cosigned statements and participated inactions urging
increased protection for human rights; supporting lawyers and
activists arbitrarily sanctioned, harassed or prosecute’requesting
abolition of re-education through labor; and denouncing death
penalty convictions. Moreover, Wang Yu also submitted legislative
suggestions and petitions, co-signed open letters and participated in
public discussions on many human rights issues, including
discrimination against gender, children’s rights and protection of
human rights lawyers.
Because of her human rights activities, Wang Yu had been
consistently harassed, threatened, assaulted by the police, and
smeared in the state-run media. On June 2015, her imprisonment in
2008 became the basis for a smear campaign in Xinhua, when a
published article portrayed Wang Yu as a violent and deceitful
lawyer who had refused to pay the financial penalty for her actions.
On July 9, 2015, early in the morning, the electricity and Internet
were shut off at Wang Yu’s home, the front door was pried open, and
she was taken away. She had just sent a text message to friends
saying that her internet and electricity had been cut off and that
people were trying to break into her home. She remained missing for
a few days before her relatives knew she had effectively been
arrested. The same day Bao Longjun, her husband and a trainee
lawyer, and Bao Zhuoxuan, their 16-year-old son, were taken into
custody at Beijing Capital Airport. Their son was handed over to his
aunt and his passport was confiscated. He then went to two of his
parents’friends with the intention to go to the United States via
Thailand, but he was apprehended in Burma. He was heavily
interrogated, and threatened. Today, the teenager is under house
arrest at his grandparents’home in Mongolia. The neighbours’homes
had been adopted for the 24-hour monitoring.
Soon after Wang’s arrest, law firm staff and their relatives have been
detained, arrested, held incommunicado, summoned, forbidden from

5. leaving the country or otherwise have had their freedom temporarily
restricted. Many of them worked at Wang’s law firm. The head of the
firm, Zhou Shifeng, was among those targeted. Since her arrest,
Wang Yu has been the focus of a ferocious attack in state media. An
official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, The People’s
Daily, accused the Fengrui Law Firm of being a criminal gang and
part of a criminal operation to ‘undermine social stability’.
Wang Yu and her husband were placed under “residential
surveillance in a designated location”. Chinese regulations allow for
secret detention in an undisclosed location for a period of up to six
months. On January 9, 2015 at the end of the six-month period,
Wang Yu, was formally charged with “subversion against the State”,
and risks a maximum sentence of life imprisonment or not less than
10 years of fixed-term imprisonment. Her husband, Bao Longjun, was
accused of incitation for the same crime. She is currently imprisoned
at Tianjin No. 1 Detention Center.
MEMBRES DU JURY 2016
(par ordre alphabétique)
Dominique Attias
Brigitte Azéma-Peyret
Isabelle Bühler Galladé
Zbigniew Cichon
Maxime Delhomme
Nicole Derhy
Carlos Fatàs Mosquera
Bertrand Favreau
Julie Goffin
Marie-France Guet
Bernd Haüsler

6. Christina Kountouri
Charilaos Ladis
Anton Giulio Lana
Fanny Margairaz
Mario Melillo
Christophe Pettiti
Agaath S. Reijnders-Sluis
Sophia Spilotopoulos
Adrie van de Streek
Haris Tagaras
Jean-Jacques Uettwiller
“The tribute given by lawyers to
a lawyer”
Created in 1984, the "International Human Rights Prize Ludovic -Trarieux” is
awarded to " a lawyer, regardless of nationality or Bar, who thoroughout his
career has illustrated, by his activity or his suffering, the defence of human
rights, the promotion of defence rights, the supremacy of law, and the
struggle against racism and intolerance in any form ".
It is the oldest and most prestigious award given to a lawyer in the world,
commemorating the memory of the French lawyer, Ludovic Trarieux (1840-
1904), who in the midst of the Dreyfus Affair, in France, in 1898, founded
the " League for the Defence of Human Rights and the Citizen ", because, he
said: " It was not only the single cause of a man which was to be defended,
but behind this cause, law, justice, humanity ".
The first Prize was awarded on March 29th, 1985 to Nelson Mandela then in
jail. It was officially presented to his daughter, Zenani Mandela Dlamini, on
April 27th 1985, in front of forty presidents of Bars and Law Societies from

7. Europe and Africa. It was the first award given to Mandela in France and the
first around the world given by lawyers. On February 11th 1990, Nelson
Mandela was released. Since then, it was decided that the Prize would be
awarded again.
Since 2003, the Prize is awarded every year in partnership by the Human
Rights Institute of The Bar of Bordeaux, the Human Rights Institute of the
Bar of Paris, the Human Rights Institute of The Bar of Brussels, l'Unione
forense per la tutela dei diritti dell'uomo (Roma), Rechtsanwaltskammer
Berlin, the Bar of Luxemburg, the Bar of Geneva, the Bar of Amsterdam as
well as the Union Internationale des Avocats (UIA), and the European Bar
Human Rights Institute (IDHAE) whose members are the biggest european law
societies fighting for human rights. It is presented every year in a city that is
home to one of the member Institutes.
1985: Nelson MANDELA (South Africa)
1992: Augusto ZÚÑIGA PAZ (Peru) †
1994: Jadranka CIGELJ (Bosnia-Herzegovina)
1996 Nejib HOSNI (Tunisia) and Dalila MEZIANE (Algeria).
1998 ZHOU Guoqiang (China)
2000 Esber YAGMURDERELI (Turkey)
2002 Mehrangiz KAR (Iran)
2003 Digna OCHOA and Bárbara ZAMORA (Mexico)
2004: Akhtam NAISSE (Syria)
2005: Henri BURIN DES ROZIERS (Brazil)
2006: Parvez IMROZ (India)
2007 : René GÓMEZ MANZANO (Cuba)
2008 : U AYE MYINT (Burma)
2009 : Beatrice MTETWA (Zimbabwe)
2010 : Karinna MOSKALENKO (Russia)
2011 : Fethi TERBIL (Libya)
2012 : Muharrem ERBEY (Turkey)
2013 : Vadim KURAMSHIN (Kazakhstan)

8. 2014 : Mahienour el-MASSRY (Egypt)
2015 : Waleed Abu al-KHAIR (Saudi Arabia)