Protests at trial of Chinese rights lawyer
Chinese activists risked arrest yesterday as they protested outside the trial of one of the country’s most prominent civil rights lawyers,who mayface up to eight years in prison for criticising the ruling Communist Party online.
Pu Zhiqiang, a vigorous defender of free speech, who previously represented the dissident artist Ai Weiwei in a tax evasion case, was accused of “provoking trouble” and “inciting ethnic hatred”.
Police outside the court in Beijing scuffled with Chinese protesters and foreign rights groups who said the charges against Mr Pu amounted to political persecution. Foreign governments including the US called for his release.
Mr Pu denied the charges. A verdict and sentence will be delivered at a later date.
“Pu Zhiqiang is a lawyer with a conscience,” activist Yang Qiuyu said as a policeman tried to grab him. “This is whyhe is nowunderarrest.We support him, and that means that we are also defending our own rights.” Mr Pu played a key role in a campaign pushing for the eventual abolition of the labour camp system, which allowed police to lock people up for up to four years without trial.
Some 50 protesters had gathered alongside journalists and Western diplomats, but all were denied entry to the court. Police and plainclothes security officers wearing yellow smiley face stickers pushed them away from the entrance and some protesters were taken away.
Mr Pu used Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter, to question the party’s policies toward the Tibetan and Uighur ethnic minorities and to mock political figures.
His defence lawyer, Mo Shaoping, said prosecutors had not shown that any of his postings had caused any problems. “This is really a case of freedom of expression, in which no harm to anyone has been proven,” he said.