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Police officers stand outside as Chinese human rights lawyer Ding Jiaxi stands trial at a court in Haidian District, Beijing, April 8, 2014. REUTERS/Petar Kujundzic
(Reuters) - The trial of two Chinese activists accused of disturbing public order after urging officials to reveal their assets began on Tuesday, the latest in a series of cases brought against anti-graft campaigners in China despite criticism from the West.
The trials of members of the "New Citizens' Movement" have sparked criticism from the United States, Europe and rights groups as evidence of the ruling Chinese Communist Party's determination to crush any dissent to its rule.
The government has waged a year-long drive against the movement, founded by Xu Zhiyong, one of China's most prominent rights activists, who was jailed in January for four years.
The two activists put on trial on Tuesday -- Ding Jiaxi and Li Wei -- advocated working within the system to press for change, including urging officials to publish details of assets.
They were charged with "gathering a crowd to disturb public order", which carries a maximum penalty of five years in prison.
The trials in Beijing were the second for the activists.
The first trial in January was aborted after the defendants dismissed their lawyers and one of the lawyers voluntarily withdrew his defense, because of improprieties in the judicial proceedings.
Sui Muqing, a lawyer representing Ding, said a conviction for his client is nearly inevitable, even though the activists' behavior and actions were legitimate.
"This so-called charge of 'disturbing public order' is not valid. (But) because this is a political persecution, a conviction for him is quite normal," Sui told Reuters by telephone.
Police blocked Reuters reporters from approaching the courthouse and harassed Sui after he was interviewed.
They also barred a crowd of diplomats from entering the courtroom, telling them that the trial was not open to the public, as a group of supporters gathered outside the courthouse.
"The way they (the government) have handled this is certainly not justifiable," said Qi Yueying, a Beijing activist who was detained last April for eight months for participating in the same demonstrations as Ding.
"Simply asking officials to disclose their assets is a perfectly legitimate and fair thing to do. When we took to the streets, we did not gather and did not do things that disturbed society."
Police accuse the activists of planning, organizing, and carrying out nearly 30 instances of "street political activities", from displaying banners to making speeches urging declaration of assets, according to a copy of Li's arrest notice.
Ding, a lawyer based in Beijing, was in charge of "organizing and overall coordination" of the movement, while Li, who is unemployed, was responsible for collecting information and organizing activists, the notice said.
Li's lawyer, Cao Weiping, declined to comment, saying he was not allowed to accept interviews.
While President Xi Jinping has made battling corruption a priority, authorities have shown no sign of agreeing to demands for such disclosures by all officials and at least 20 anti-graft activists have been detained.
Wary of any organized challenge to the party's rule, Xi's administration has ratcheted up pressure on dissent. It has clamped down on critics on the Internet and tightened curbs on journalists.
One more activist, Zhao Changqing, will stand trial on Thursday. Xu, the founder of New Citizens' Movement, has appealed against his conviction, and decision is expected on Friday.
(Additional reporting by Maxim Duncan; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)
Anti-graft activists stand trial in Beijing under heavy police guard
Members of New Citizens Movement face court over their attempts to expose official wrongdoing
PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 08 April, 2014, 4:26pm
UPDATED : Tuesday, 08 April, 2014, 5:18pm
Agence France-Presse in Beijing
Police officers stand outside the Haidian district court in Beijing on Tuesday. Photo: Reuters
Two mainland anti-corruption activists went on trial under heavy security on Tuesday, in Beijing’s latest strike against a burgeoning rights movement.
Ding Jiaxi and Li Wei appeared at a court in Beijing’s Haidian district, their lawyers said. Scores of uniformed and plain-clothes police were deployed in various locations around the building, with at least 20 police vehicles.
Both men are members of the New Citizens Movement, a loose-knit network of activists whose dinner discussions and small-scale protests calling for official disclosure of assets have drawn the anger of the authorities in Beijing.
China’s ruling Communist Party is in the midst of a highly-publicised anti-corruption campaign, which President Xi Jinping has pledged will target both high-ranking “tigers” and low-level “flies” in the face of public anger over the issue.
But the party has cracked down harshly on independent activists who have the same goals, viewing organised anti-corruption protests as a challenge to its rule.
Diplomats stand outside the court where the activists are on trial. One European diplomat said one protester yelled "Ding Jiaxi is innocent!” before being hauled away by police. Photo: Reuters
Li’s lawyer, Jiang Yuanmin, said that while Beijing has touted its anti-graft efforts, the activists were being targeted by authorities who wish to keep their wealth hidden from public view.
“His behaviour does not constitute a crime,” he said of his client. “People like Ding Jiaxi and Li Wei, they just want government officials to report their assets.
“This goes against the interests of a vast majority of officials,” he added. “So the government is afraid.”
The trial is likely to take at least two days, Jiang said, as the court was not allowing the defence to call any witnesses and Ding’s lawyer refused to answer any of the court’s questions in protest.
Ding, 46, is a well-known human rights lawyer. Li, 42, was unemployed at the time of his arrest last May.
A third member of the movement, Zhao Changqing, is expected to go on trial on Thursday. Zhao was a student leader during the 1989 pro-democracy protests at Tiananmen Square and previously served eight years in jail.
The trials come three months after a Beijing court pronounced Xu Zhiyong, a founding member of the New Citizens Movement, guilty of “gathering crowds to disrupt public order”.
Police cordon off the Haidan district court around a week before today's trials. Photo: AP
The 40-year-old Xu, a prominent legal activist, was sentenced to four years in jail.
Ding, Li and Zhao face similar charges and appeared in court in January. But the three men dismissed their lawyers in protest at the accusations against them, a move which triggered a delay to their trials.
As in previous trials of New Citizens Movement members, the heavy police presence deterred any organised demonstrations in support of the defendants.
Officers were checking the IDs of passers-by outside the courthouse in northwest Beijing, and journalists were barred from approaching the building or lingering outside.
As the proceedings got underway, one protester yelled “Ding Jiaxi is innocent!” before quickly being bundled off by police, according to a European diplomat who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the trial.
In an open letter published last Sunday by the human rights website China Change, Ding revealed that he had been threatened and abused by his interrogators in a process reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution, China’s decade of political and cultural upheaval beginning in the mid-1960s.
“They are terrified of what we did,” Ding wrote. “They want to try us in order to warn the others. They want to tell the Chinese people, people living in China, that it is a crime to demand that officials disclose their assets.”
“In essence, this is anti- anti-corruption,” he wrote.
