Court says prominent rights lawyer admits to crimes
BEIJING: A leading Chinese human rights lawyer admitted to getting “brainwashed” overseas at the opening of his trial yesterday, the court said, in a case which sparked an international outcry after allegations he was tortured.
Xie Yang, who had worked on numerous cases considered politically sensitive by China’s ruling Communist Party, was among hundreds of legal staff and activists detained in a crackdown in the summer of 2015.
The Changsha Intermediate People’s Court announced the trial’s start on its account in a microblogging website, saying Mr Xie was charged with “inciting subversion of state power and disrupting court order”.
The court transcript said Mr Xie did not object to the charges and admitted that he had received “training” in Hong Kong and South Korea.
When the judge asked him what kind of training, the court said he answered: “The brainwashing of Western constitutional thoughts” in order to “overthrow the existing system and develop Western constitutionalism in China”.
Mr Xie was also asked if he had been tortured, to which he told the court: “No.” Mr Xie previously claimed police used “sleep deprivation, long interrogations, beatings, death threats, humiliations” on him.
The US and the EU have voiced concern over his case. Eleven countries, including Canada, Australia and Switzerland, have cited Mr Xie’s case in a letter to Beijing criticising China’s detention practices.
There was no prior public notice of the trial, and Mr Xie’s wife — who relocated to the US this year — said she heard nothing from authorities. “The court claims family members are in attendance at the trial, but I wasn’t able to reach any of them,” she said.
Last-minute delays or sudden announcements of sensitive trials are not uncommon even though Chinese law requires courts to give a defendant’s family and lawyers three days notice of any changes.
“Xie made a series of sworn testimonies to his family-appointed lawyer that police and prosecutors tortured him to force him to confess, which he said he did to make the pain stop,” Frances Eve, researcher for the charity Chinese Human Rights Defenders said. “Today’s show trial deprives Xie of independent legal counsel and glosses over his torture allegations.”
Mr Xie’s former attorney, Chen Jiangang, was detained by authorities last week while he was holidaying with his family, sparking condemnation from the UN human rights office. A UN statement on Friday said the move was part of a “continuing pattern of harassment of lawyers, through continued detention, without full due process”.