“He said that if these microblog posts had caused injury to other people, he apologizes for it. He had no intention to incite ethnic hatred or pick quarrels and provoke trouble”, his lawyer, Mo, said.
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China has started the trial of prominent rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang after he posted messages on social media criticizing the Communist Party, including policies on Buddhist monasteries in Tibet and a ban on Muslim veils.
The Guardian’s Beijing correspondent, Tom Phillips, reported that scuffles erupted during “chaotic scenes as scores of Chinese police officers and plainclothes security forces in face masks attempted to physically drive supporters, diplomats and journalists from the area around the court”. We need freedom of speech!
Mr Pu was detained early in May 2014 after attending an event to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown.
In a statement, Human Rights Watch’s Sophie Richardson said that “nothing Pu Zhiqiang has written has violated any law, but the authorities’ treatment of him certainly has”.
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.
Supporters of rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang and foreign journalists stand after being pushed away by police near the Beijing Second Intermediate People’s Court in Beijing, Monday, Dec. 14, 2015. Some 40 well-wishers gathered outside the courthouse and chanted slogans to show solidarity with the accused. “If we, as ordinary people in China, don’t speak out, we will be repressed”.
As for the supposedly incendiary posts the lawyer made, they include political opinions, such as that “If Xinjian belongs to China, then don’t treat is as a colony”.
This July, the Chinese government initiated a sweeping crackdown on human rights lawyers, with hundreds detained for questioning and several dozen still under detention and accused as members of a “major criminal gang”.
Dozens of Pu Zhiqiang’s supporters travelled from across the country, some for thousands of kilometres, to protest outside the courtroom in Beijing.
Patrick Poon, China researcher at Amnesty International, called Mr. Pu’s trial “an act of political persecution”.
On Monday morning, two recent graduates from the China University of Political Science and Law, Pu’s alma mater, quietly snapped pictures of the courthouse with their phones.
United States and European Union diplomats were jostled and shouted down when they tried to make statements outside the court.
Said Xu, the former client: “Pu Zhiqiang told me, ‘You must believe in justice'”.
Reached by phone on Monday, Meng said she finally had the chance to see her husband.
He also was instrumental in pushing for the eventual abolishment of the labor camp system, which allowed police to lock up people for up to four years without a trial.
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The case has attracted so much attention because of Pu’s professional stature – his work has been praised by state-run magazines – and the fact he faces a near-certain conviction on what many consider a problematic, catch-all charge.
