Activist attorney Pu Zhiqiang is accused of a total of four offences as investigators hand his case to prosecutors in next step towards trial
PUBLISHED : Friday, 21 November, 2014, 3:08am UPDATED : Friday, 21 November, 2014, 9:34am
Verna Yu
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Beijing police had handed over the case of human rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang to prosecutors after pressing a total of four charges against him. Photo: Reuters
Beijing police had handed over the case of human rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang to prosecutors after pressing a total of four charges against him, his lawyer said yesterday, confirming fears that he may face a lengthy jail sentence.
Pu was placed in criminal detention in early May, three days after attending a private meeting commemorating the 25th anniversary of the crackdown on the Tiananmen pro-democracy movement. He was one of five scholars and activists detained by police after the event, although the others were released on bail.
In June, Pu was charged with “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” and “illegally obtaining personal information”.
But police recently pressed two more charges before sending Pu’s case to prosecutors, his lawyer Mo Shaoping said.
The new charges were likely to be “inciting to subvert state power” and “inciting racial hatred”, although Mo could not give exact details as he had just taken over Pu’s case and did not have access to case documents.
The charge of illegal access to personal information related to Pu’s commercial cases, while the other charges related to his online commentaries, Mo said.
On his microblog, Pu has lambasted senior officials including Mao Xinyu, the grandson of Mao Zedong and a major-general in the People’s Liberation Army, and a legislator who said she had never voted “no” in parliamentary sessions.
The racial hatred charge was likely to be connected with Pu’s criticism of former Xinjiang Communist Party chief Wang Lequan’s hardline policies in the region following the deadly knife attack at a Kunming railway station in March that was blamed on Uygur separatists.
But Mo was unsure whether the charges were also linked to Pu’s criticism of disgraced security tsar Zhou Yongkang last year, which led to Pu’s microblog accounts being closed.