 Although there is relatively little awareness of the Weiquan phenomenon as a movement outside of China , Western governments and human rights organizations have consistently expressed concern over the treatment of individual Weiquan lawyers in China , some of whom have faced disbarment , imprisonment , prolonged disappearance , sentencing and alleged torture for their work in promoting civil rights and speaking out against one @-@ party rule . In October 2010 , a bipartisan group of 29 members of the U.S. House of Representatives pressed President Obama to raise the cases of Liu Xiaobo and Gao Zhisheng with the Chinese leadership , writing of Gao <unk> 's prolonged detention : " If lawyers are hauled away for the " crime " of defending their clients , then even the pretense of rule of law in China has failed . " The U.S. State Department claims to have raised the cases of these two individuals with their Chinese counterparts . 
