3 cases drawing human rights focus to China
China, which recently basked in the glow of an international summit, will end this week in the spotlight for its treatment of at least three prominent human rights advocates.
On Thursday, the lawyer representing Pu Zhiqiang, an attorney who has advocated on behalf of China’s disenfranchised, said authorities have told him Pu faces upgraded charges that could land him in prison for decades.
On Friday, a Beijing court is scheduled to begin the trial against Gao Yu, a journalist accused of leaking a government document that, among other things, sought to expand censorship. She faces a possible life sentence if convicted.
Also on Friday, a court in far-west Xinjiang province is expected to announce its decision in an appeal filed by Ilham Tohti, a Uighur scholar who was sentenced to life in prison in September for “separatism.” Supporters say he is being punished for criticizing government treatment of Uighurs, Muslims who call Xinjiang their homeland.
Human rights groups say the three actions, along with others, signal that Chinese President Xi Jinping will continue to apply a hard line at home, even as he acts as a gracious international host.
“It is very worrying,” said William Nee, a China researcher for Amnesty International in Hong Kong. “We are now seeing more cases (of Chinese dissidents) being accused of ‘splitism' and subversion simply for voicing their opinions.”
The accusations are doubly troubling, said Nee and other advocates, because all three activists are known in their communities for being loyal Chinese citizens, trying to work within the system for social change.
In Pu’s case, the lawyer once seemed to be in good standing with China’s Communist Party and was quoted prominently in state media as part of a successful campaign to end forced-labor camps.
In May, however, Pu gathered at a private home with a dozen other Beijing intellectuals to commemorate the 1989 military assault on protesters at Tiananmen Square. As they had done five years ago, those in attendance posed for a photo that was posted on the Internet.
The case against Gao is only the latest of several run-ins the investigative reporter has had with the Communist Party, in part because of her deep connections inside the party. She faced a 14-month detention in 1989 after a Hong Kong newspaper published a story she wrote in support of the protests in Tiananmen Square. In the 1990s, she served six years in prison, accused of leaking government documents she’d obtained.
In the most recent case, authorities invoked China’s broad “state secrets” law in May to detain Gao, 70. They accused her of distributing a protected government document to a foreign website.
The government hasn’t named the document Gao allegedly leaked, but there was once wide speculation that it was “Document No. 9,” which laid out the government’s plans for maintaining ideological controls in China. The document gained international attention in August 2013 when the Hong Kong-based Mingjing Monthly published it.
Since then, the magazine’s publisher has denied that Gao was the source of Document No. 9, adding to uncertainty about what she’s accused of leaking.
Rights group say the case illustrates how Chinese journalists enjoy hardly any of the liberties taken for granted elsewhere, even though China’s constitution guarantees freedom of the press.
This story was originally published November 20, 2014 at 8:10 PM with the headline "3 cases drawing human rights focus to China."