MCLC: Xu Zhiyong trial

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: Xu Zhiyong trial
***********************************************************

Source: NYT (1/17/14):
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/18/world/asia/trial-set-for-prominent-rights
-activist-in-china.html

Trial Begins Next Week for Human Rights Activist in China
By CHRIS BUCKLEY

HONG KONG — One of China’s most prominent human rights activists, Xu
Zhiyong, will stand trial next week and believes that his conviction is
all but certain, although he will fight the charges, his lawyer said
Friday.

The lawyer, Zhang Qingfang, said that after a day of unsuccessfully trying
to convince court officials in Beijing that there were major procedural
flaws in the case, the officials handed him a notice that Mr. Xu would
face trial on Wednesday for “assembling a crowd to disrupt order in a
public place.” If convicted, Mr. Xu could spend up to five years in
prison, Mr. Zhang said in a telephone interview.

“I also visited Xu during the day, and he was very normal and steady,” Mr.
Zhang said. “But he sees that this trial is basically just going through
the motions. We can foresee the outcome already.”

Another defense lawyer for Mr. Xu, Yang Jinzhu, who also went to the court
meeting, confirmed the trial date in a brief telephone interview.

The trial will be a show of the determination of President Xi Jinping and
other Communist Party leaders to extinguish any organized opposition,
however mild, emerging to challenge their control, Mr. Xu’s supporters
have said.

China's courts are controlled by the Communist Party and rarely find
defendants innocent, especially in politically contentious cases like this
one. Mr. Xu will nonetheless contest the charges, Mr. Zhang said.

“All the prosecution’s witness testimony will probably be given in
writing, with none of the witnesses called to the courtroom, and Xu
Zhiyong has said he will stay silent for that phase, and we will respect
his wishes,” Mr. Zhang said. “But in the defense phase, it’s likely that
we’ll vigorously reject the whole basis of the charges, and Mr. Xu hasn’t
excluded also making his own statement then.”

Over the past decade, Mr. Xu, 40, has become one of China’s best-known
rights advocates, campaigning against, among other things, arbitrary
detention by the police, discriminatory barriers against rural
schoolchildren and “black jails” used to secretly detain aggrieved
citizens who travel to Beijing to complain to officials. He taught law at
the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications.

He also became the most prominent advocate of the New Citizens Movement,
which won widespread attention early last year with small protests across
the country demanding that Communist Party officials disclose their
wealth, release political prisoners and give people more say in
government. Mr. Xu was detained by the police in July and had been under
informal house arrest since April.

After Mr. Xi assumed leadership of the party in November 2012, he promised
greater accountability and a fairer legal system. But Mr. Xi and other
leaders have also emphasized that they wanted to bolster, not weaken,
controls over the Internet, ideology and social unrest — and the efforts
to stamp out the New Citizens Movement have reflected that determination.

“They believe there’s a crisis of control and civil forces are constantly
strengthening, so finally we have this intense contention,” Teng Biao, a
Chinese legal scholar who has long been friends with Mr. Xu, said in an
interview. “It’s very difficult for a system like this to abandon power of
its own accord.”

Altogether, about 18 participants in the New Citizens Movement were
arrested last year, although a few were released, according to Maya Wang,
a researcher in Hong Kong for Human Rights Watch. Three stood trial in
Jiangxi Province in southeast China late last year, and are awaiting
verdicts.

The prosecutors’ indictment against Mr. Xu, issued last month, dwelled on
allegations that he had orchestrated protests in Beijing, including a
gathering by people calling for equal schooling opportunities for rural
and urban children.

Only a handful of Mr. Xu’s relatives will be allowed in the courtroom, Mr.
Zhang said. Mr. Xu’s wife gave birth to their first child, a daughter, on
Monday.