By CHRIS BUCKLEYSEPT. 12, 2014
A man was led away by plainclothes police outside the court where Yang Maodong, better known by his pen name, Guo Feixiong, was being tried on a charge of assembling a crowd to disrupt public disorder. Credit Alex Lee/Reuters
HONG KONG — The trial of one of southern China’s most prominent dissidents was cut short Friday after he and another defendant said they would remain silent and their lawyers boycotted the proceedings. The lawyers said the trial was postponed and would resume at a later date.
The dissident, Yang Maodong, better known by his pen name, Guo Feixiong, faced a charge of assembling a crowd to disrupt public order, stemming from his participation in a surge of citizen activism around the time Xi Jinping, now China’s president, became the Communist Party’s top leader nearly two years ago. Groups across China urged the party to disclose officials’ wealth and respect human rights, using the Internet to spread their demands.
Mr. Yang and another defendant, Sun Desheng, were to be tried on the public disorder charge in the Tianhe District People’s Court in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong Province. But even before the hearing began Friday, they said that they would not speak during the trial, citing restrictions that they said made a mockery of their legal rights.