Lawyers in China are being detained on spurious charges and denied their right to legal representation, the Law Society’s international action team has warned.

The volunteer team of human rights lawyers helped Law Society president Robert Heslett write four times to China’s prime minister Wen Jiabao last month to protest at the regime’s disregard for the rule of law and maltreatment of four named lawyers.

Li Zhuang, sentenced to two and a half years, was charged on the evidence of a criminal who has admitted he testified to avoid the death penalty.

Gao Zhisheng, a Nobel Peace Prize nominee who has not been seen since his arrest in February 2009, stands accused of ‘attacking the Chinese ­government’ after calling for an end to the persecution of the Falun Gong spiritual movement.

Huang Qi received a three-year prison sentence for the ‘illegal possession of state secrets’ after meeting the parents of children who died when their schools collapsed in the Sichuan earthquake. He has cancer but has received no medical treatment.

Wang Yonghang, who has represented members of the Falun Gong, was sentenced to seven years for publishing articles on internet sites outside China. He has been assaulted in prison.

Heslett also wrote to Fiji’s minister for justice in support of human rights lawyer Imrana Jalal, an adviser to the UN Development Programme. She was charged with corruption for allegedly running a restaurant without the necessary licence.