By CHRIS BUCKLEY JUNE 24, 2014
HONG KONG — Prosecutors in southern China have decided to put on trial a well-known human rights campaigner, Yang Maodong, on charges of disrupting public order, his lawyer said on Tuesday.
Mr. Yang and a co-defendant are likely to be the latest in a line of activists tried for participating in a burst of protests against corruption, censorship and the detention of protesters after President Xi Jinping’s elevation to the Communist Party leadership.
Mr. Yang, 47, best known by his pen name, Guo Feixiong, was detained last August in Guangzhou, the southern Chinese city where he had emerged as a combative and charismatic leader of activists and aggrieved citizens who had sought to push for political change in the relatively relaxed atmosphere after Mr. Xi’s elevation in November 2012.