Safeguarding foreigners' rights

Changes to nation's criminal laws mean a greater number of foreign nationals are eligible for free legal aid when they go to court, as Zhang Yan reports from Lincang, Yunnan province.

'If the Chinese lawyer hadn't actively defended me, I would have been executed rather than receiving a lenient sentence, considering the amount of drugs seized and the serious harm (they could have done)," said Theodoros Kourtidis with tears in his eyes, after his conviction for transporting heroin in Yunnan province.

Speaking at a detention center in the Yunnan city of Lincang, the remorseful 50-year-old Australian said: "I didn't expect the Chinese government to assign a lawyer to provide free legal services, or that the judicial organs would pay attention to the protection of my legal rights."