He was in court for barely three hours, no members of the public were permitted to watch and no verdict was announced.
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“The authorities have made it clear that they see rights lawyers in particular as enemies of the state…”
“Pu Zhiqiang is a lawyer with a conscience”, activist Yang Qiuyu said in a brief interview outside the venue while a policeman tried to grab him. “This is why he is now under arrest”.
Friends and supporters of Pu Zhiqiang attempted to hold up placards defending him, and chanted “Pu Zhiqiang is innocent”, before being set upon by security forces in plain clothes.
Pu, who has represented labour camp victims and dissident artist Ai Weiwei, was detained a year and a half ago in a nationwide crackdown on critics.
The scuffles with police and plainclothes agents started when a couple dozen foreign journalists tried to approach the courthouse while they were following about a dozen Western diplomats who unsuccessfully tried to attend what was meant to be a public proceeding.
Almost a dozen diplomats from countries including the US, Germany and France, gathered at Beijing No 2 Intermediate People’s Court seeking to observe the trial, but were refused admittance by police, some uniformed and some plainclothes state security officials wearing smiley badges. They threw one of the protesters the ground and took away others. One foreign journalist reported being slammed to the ground. He was indicted in May on charges of “inciting ethnic hatred” and “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” stemming from seven Sina Weibo posts he wrote critical of the ruling Communist Party and its policies toward the Uighur minority group in the northwestern region of Xinjiang.
“Secondly, he said that if these microblog posts had caused injury to other people, he apologises for it. Thirdly, he had no intention to incite ethnic hatred or pick quarrels and provoke trouble”.
The court did not answer phone calls, and prosecutors could not immediately be reached for comment.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has spearheaded a crack down on freedom of expression, civil activists and human rights attorneys since coming to power in late 2012.
Pu, who participated in the 1989 pro-democracy protests, was among several people detained previous year in the run-up to the 25th anniversary of the bloody Tiananmen crackdown. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of protesters were killed, and the topic remains taboo in China. Pu could be sentenced to eight years in prison if he is convicted for the seven posts on Weibo.
The U.S. Embassy is “concerned” about the “vague charges” leveled against Pu, Dan Biers, deputy political counselor at the embassy, told a small scrum of reporters as police shoved and shouted “go” to drown out his words. “Lawyers and civil society leaders such as Mr. Pu should not be subject to continuing repression, but should be allowed to contribute to the building of a prosperous and stable China”, Biers said.
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International media and human rights groups, including Amnesty International, have condemned the trial as politically motivated.
