China rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang goes on trial in Beijing

The prominent advocate is charged with racial incitement and provoking trouble over social media postings that criticized the ruling party and its policies towards ethnic minorities in China. 

|
Andy Wong/AP
Police officers push away foreign journalists covering rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang's trial at the Beijing Second Intermediate People's Court in Beijing, Monday, Dec. 14, 2015. Pu went on trial Monday on charges of provoking trouble with commentaries on social media that were critical of the ruling Communist Party.

China’s most influential human rights lawyer went on trial himself here Monday, as police scuffled outside the courthouse with diplomats and journalists who were not allowed in.

Pu Zhiqiang faces charges of “inciting racial hatred” and “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” which could earn him eight years imprisonment.

Mr. Pu’s supporters say the accusations, based on seven sharp-tongued posts on Chinese social media criticizing the government, are simply an excuse to shut him up. Should he be found guilty, as observers expect, he will automatically be disbarred as a lawyer, colleagues say. He has already been in jail for 19 months. 

Pu’s trial is widely seen as a new high-water mark in President Xi Jinping’s crackdown on any signs of action or thought critical of the government. Several hundred lawyers have been detained, harassed, or disappeared over the past six months; more than two dozen remain under arrest or unaccounted for, human rights groups say.

The US embassy expressed concern at what it called the “vague charges” against China’s best known rights lawyer and urged the authorities to release him. A senior US diplomat who read the statement outside the courthouse on Monday morning was jostled and shouted down by plainclothes policemen.

Though several dozen of Pu’s supporters chanted slogans protesting his innocence outside the court, they were forbidden to attend the trial. At least two of them were detained by the police. Pu’s wife, Meng Qun, the only relative permitted entry, told a friend that her husband was “thinner and grayer but still quick witted,” the friend tweeted. The court did not issue a verdict, Ms. Meng reported.

Pu is a particularly prominent lawyer, having played a leading role in the successful campaign to abolish “re-education through labor,” a system whereby police could lock someone up for as long as four years with no trial. He also stood up to powerful figures in the ruling Communist party, publicly accusing former security chief Zhou Yongkang of abusing his authority long before the much-feared party boss was arrested for corruption.

“Pu is a very special person,” his lawyer, Shang Baojun said before the trial. “He is one of the best human rights lawyers in China,” he added, who magnified his influence through pungently expressed social media posts that won him tens of thousands of followers. His accounts have since been shut down. 

'Freedom of speech' or incitement? 

Pu took up the law after joining the pro-democracy demonstrations on Tiananmen Square in 1989, which were violently broken up by the army. He was arrested last year soon after attending a private meeting with other former participants to commemorate that event.

After 18 months of investigation, however, the prosecutor cited just seven comments by Pu on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter, as evidence supporting the charges. Three of the posts insulted government officials and supporters, including Mao Zedong’s grandson; the other four criticized policies towards minorities such as Tibetans and Uighur Muslims.

Such criticism of the government is not uncommon on Weibo, and Pu did not deny writing and posting the comments, says Mr. Shang. “The question is how to interpret them – as incitements to hatred or exercising freedom of speech?” he adds. “Pu’s case is a very typical one, of somebody getting into trouble because of what he said.”

The court’s verdict, expected in the next few weeks, will be seen as a bellwether for human rights activism in China. Pu is almost certain to be found guilty – more than 99.9 percent of defendants in criminal cases were found guilty by Chinese courts in 2013, according to official figures. The judge could be lenient and hand him a suspended sentence, or put him in jail for as long as eight years, according to his lawyers.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to China rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang goes on trial in Beijing
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Asia-Pacific/2015/1214/China-rights-lawyer-Pu-Zhiqiang-goes-on-trial-in-Beijing
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe