BEIJING–One fine fall afternoon last year, Li Heping was making his way towards a newspaper kiosk not far from his office when a man approached, grabbed him by the arm and said sternly, "Come with me."

"I said, `I don't even know who you are'," Li recalls. "But he said, `If your name is Li Heping, you'd better come with me.'"

In a matter of seconds, Li had a cloth sack pulled over his head, he was wrestled into a car and driven to the outskirts of town where he was brought down into a basement and beaten.

Li is a lawyer – a partner in the respected Beijing Globe Law Firm.

He's among a select group of lawyers in China who dare to take on politically sensitive cases.

"They were slapping me about the head, pulling me by the hair and striking me with electrical batons.

"They were yelling, `Sell your house, sell your car and get the hell out of Beijing!'"

Towards midnight, he was bundled back into the car and dumped in a forested area, from which he eventually made his way home.

Li is one of 49 human rights lawyers interviewed for a report released today by Human Rights Watch entitled, "Walking on Thin Ice: Control, Intimidation and Harassment of Lawyers in China.

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