Authorities in the northern city of Tianjin said Zhai Yanmin, 55, “had always been influenced by anti-China forces, and gradually adopted ideology to overthrow the current state system”, according to what appeared to be partial transcripts of court proceedings released by the official Xinhua news agency.
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The detained lawyers and activists are widely known as “709”, a reference to the date the crackdown was launched on 9 July 2015.
Zhai’s wife, Liu Ermin, was taken into custody on Sunday night and has not been heard from since, friends were quoted as saying.
Xinhua, the state media agency, said the trial would be open to observers and that 28 people were expected to attend, including “12 representatives from domestic media and five others from worldwide media”.
Zhai Yanmin is one of a group of four activists and lawyers accused of “subversion of state power”.
Dressed in a crumpled white business shirt, and reading from a prepared, hand-written statement, an emotional Zhai told the court he had “let his country down” but had now repented and was willing to “wipe his eyes clean, to see “foreign hostile forces” and others with ulterior motives” for what they were.
Hu encouraged Zhai to organize professional petitioners to “cause chaos” and “fire-up hatred for the government”, Xinhua said.
Wang’s statement is the latest in a series of alleged confessions that have appeared in Chinese state media – and, more recently, in Hong Kong outlets – with the apparent goal of settling high-profile political cases before they go to trial.
To safeguard the defendant’s rights and interests and ensure a fair and efficient trial, a pretrial conference was held on July 22.
The trials come after a televised “confession” and subsequent release on bail of prominent Beijing rights lawyer Wang Yu earlier this week.
After the shooting, Zhai organized protests at the railway station and in front of the county government buildings in support of Xu.
In her video interview, Wang denounced Zhou, the law firm’s head, as an unqualified lawyer and said all of the firm’s lawyers had received training in how to use Western universal values, human rights and democracy to “attack and smear” the Chinese government.
“I am a Chinese”. “I am Chinese. I only accept awards from the Chinese leadership”.
Zhai, 55, was also deprived of his political rights for four years, according to Tuesday’s court verdict.
The Chinese government rejects all criticism of its human rights record.
Similar to Ms Wang, Zhai had previously appeared in June past year with a repentant televised confession on state broadcaster CCTV.
The trials of Zhou, Hu and Gou Hongguo are likely to follow soon after Zhai’s according to the overseas-based Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) network, which compiles reports from rights groups inside China. His family, who have been unable to contact him for the past year, was not informed of the trial in advance.
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“It’s an unfair trial nearly by every way you can look at it”, said William Nee, China researcher for Amnesty International.
