The Chinese authorities have ordered a leading women’s legal aid center in Beijing to shut down operations, the center’s founder said on Friday, another sign of a continuing crackdown on civil society. As word spread of the closing of the Beijing Zhongze Women’s Legal Counseling and Service Center, many women’s rights advocates expressed shock. The center was highly symbolic for having been born of the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing in 1995, a moment when China, struggling to be accepted internationally after the 1989 military suppression of pro-democracy demonstrations at Tiananmen Square, loosened controls on civil society activities. Read more
