709 crackdown
| Native name | 中国709维权律师大抓捕事件 |
|---|---|
| English name | 709 Crackdown |
| Date | 9 July 2015 |
| Location | Beijing, China |
| Target | Human rights lawyers, civil rights defenders, activists |
| Organized by | General secretaryship of Xi Jinping, Chinese Communist Party, Ministry of Public Security |
| Outcome | Repression of Chinese civil society and arrest of hundreds of human rights lawyers, disbarment |
| Arrests | 300+ |
| Charges | Subversion of state power, picking quarrels and provoking trouble |
The 709 Crackdown (Chinese: 中国709维权律师大抓捕事件; pinyin: Zhōngguó 709 wéiquán lǜshī dàzhuābǔ shìjiàn; lit. 'China 709 mass arrest of civil rights lawyers incident' or 709案 '709 Case' for short) was a nationwide crackdown on Chinese lawyers and human rights activists during the summer of 2015. It is known as the "709 crackdown" as it started on 9 July 2015.
Yaqiu Wang of Human Rights Watch commented that "the 709 crackdown dealt a terrible blow to China's rights-defense movement, which significantly contracted as rights lawyers were jailed, disbarred or placed under surveillance".