Legal scholars in China should reflect on their “banality” and roles in putting innocent people in jail, said dissident jurist Xu Zhangren.

“Pocket crimes” that assisted authorities in sending anyone they disliked into jail were prevalent in China, Xu wrote in a social media article criticizing the legal profession following the arrest of his friend and supporter Geng Xiaonan.

“They put you into the pocket when they want to target you,” Xu wrote last Thursday, adding that those offences had put many innocent people in jail and legal scholars should be reflective of their own roles.

The accusation that Geng and her husband Qin Zhen were operating an “illicit business” was an example of such pocket crimes, he said. The purpose of the couple’s arrest was to set an example to other critics of the Chinese authorities, according to Xu.

He added that most legal scholars in China were purely “administrators” who willingly betrayed their profession. They were “surprisingly banal” and were accomplices of state suppression, he wrote.

The outspoken Xu was fired by Tsinghua University and detained in July after he called for political reform and criticized Chinese President Xi Jinping. Geng and Qin — who ran publishing company Ruiya Books — were taken away by police earlier this month after she drew attention to Xu’s case.

Xu was offered a research position by Harvard University following Tsinghua’s dismissal but he was not able to travel to the U.S. because he was banned from leaving China.

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