“When he’s released, I’ll show them to him so that he’ll know what I was thinking about all this time”, she said.
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American diplomat Dan Biers was pushed away while making a statement near the courthouse. “‘There are no human rights in China, ‘ she said”.
At least one foreign journalist also was slammed to the ground, the Foreign Correspondents Club of China said in an open letter of complaint about the rough treatment. In recent years, the “picking quarrels” charge has been used against a wide range of dissidents and activists in China.
Dilxat Raxit, a spokesman with the World Uyghur Congress in Germany, disagrees with the Chinese regime’s persecution of Pu Zhiqiang for his supposedly ethnically insensitive Weibo posts. In those posts, he criticized government officials as well as policy in China’s ethnic borderlands.
“He admitted the seven microblogs were written by him; there was no issue with it, this is a fact”, Mr Mo said, recounting what Pu said in court. Since his detention, human rights groups and foreign diplomats have warned over his deteriorating health and called for his release.
The trial of the lawyer, Pu Zhiqiang, 50, drew wide condemnation, including from foreign governments that sent diplomats to the courthouse in central Beijing to try to observe the proceedings. If found guilty, which is seen as a very likely possibility since the charges are deemed to be baseless, with one protester, 65-year-old Zhao Ming stating, “They have found nothing against him”, Pu faces 8 years in prison.
Police and plainclothes security officers wearing yellow smiley face stickers pushed journalists and protesters away from the court entrance area.
“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.
His lawyer, Mo Shaoping, says the case centres on seven posts the lawyer made on the social media site Weibo between 2011 and 2014. He has already been in jail for 19 months.
Pu initially faced four charges, including inciting separatism and illegally obtaining personal information, according to his lawyers.
Amnesty International say that is what he is really being punished for – standing up to the Chinese government.
Despite the heavy-handed police presence, around 40 protesters outside the court chanted in support of Mr. Pu. Several of them were detained.
In one of the tweets seen by RFA, Pu takes aim at Shen Jilan, an elderly delegate who claims never to have voted “no” in the National People’s Congress (NPC). In such cases, senior officials, not the judges, generally decide the verdict and sentence. 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.
The trial is taking place at Beijing’s Number Two Intermediate People’s Court. His accounts have since been shut down.
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In the comments, Pu said that China did not need Communist rule, writing: “Other than secrecy, cheating, passing the buck, delay, the hammer and sickle, what kinds of secrets of governance does this party have?” In another message, Pu mocks Mao Xinyu, Mao Zedong’s grandson.
