Qin Ma. “Depoliticization and Politicization: The Resilience of Chinese Sǐkē (Diehard) Lawyers’ Movement.” Harvard Human Rights Journal 38, no. 1 (2025): 113–166. https://journals.law.harvard.edu/hrj/wp-content/uploads/sites/83/2025/05/03_HLH_38_1_Qin-Ma113-166.pdf

Legal mobilization consistently faces tremendous challenges, particularly in China, where maintaining stability is a top priority. However, over the last decade, a group of Chinese defense lawyers known as Sǐkē (die-hard/死磕派) lawyers turned to collective action and mobilization to fight for criminal justice. The Sǐkē lawyers’ movement, marked by its unique resilience and transformation, presents a remarkable story of legal mobilization within a restrictive landscape. Existing studies on Sǐkē lawyers have lumped them together with human rights lawyers, assuming that they “disappeared” after the “709 Crackdown” on human rights activists in 2015. This confusion obscures the uniqueness and persistent struggle of Sǐkē lawyers. To clear up the confusion, this article, based on in-depth interviews and participatory observation, reveals the survival and persistence of Sǐkē lawyers in the aftermath of the crackdown.