ABSTRACT
The civil rights that progressive peoples should not bestowed by sovereigns or granted by the law. They are won by the struggles of people with foresight and written in blood into the law. They are protected by the constant vigilance of countless numbers of people. Laws can only stipulate our rights but cannot protect them. The protection of rights depends on individuals cultivating the good habit of never being willing to abandon their rights. The Chinese have only called for rights consciousness for a short period of time; legal education has existed for an even shorter period. The existence of Chinese public legal defenders has been still more recent, so the civil rights set forth in constitutions and provisional constitutions are still empty phrases. The movement for the protection of civil rights has begun to develop in our time because the battle lines have been most clearly drawn and the political conflict grown most intense.
