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<\/a>\nPU ZHIQIANG (\u6d66\u5fd7\u5f3a). PHOTO FROM ONLINE.<\/p>\n
On January 11, the Chinese human rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang (\u6d66\u5fd7\u5f3a) spent his fiftieth birthday behind bars. No one knows what was going through the mind of this famous and very vocal lawyer and writer. However, many lawyers, legal scholars and journalists wished him a happy birthday on the Chinese Internet; one message was re-broadcast 2,300 times and drew 500 comments. It amounted to a mass protest, Chinese style.<\/p>\n
Some well-known lawyers and legal scholars did not sidestep their anger about the government\u2019s crackdown on human rights lawyers. He Weifang (\u8d3a\u536b\u65b9), a law professor at Peking University, wrote: \u201cThe government is righting legal abuses with one hand and creating more with the other. There can be no greater folly or moral rot!\u201d<\/p>\n
This brings to mind the impassioned open letter by that brave scholar with a strong sense of ethics during the height of the princeling Bo Xilai\u2019s power. Professor He Weifang attacked the grave legal abuses perpetrated under Bo around the Li Zhuang (\u674e\u5e84) case, including the revival of Maoist campaigns and crackdown on lawyers. Nor did he let some of his peers in the region off the hook, demanding that \u201cscholars take a clear and firm critical stand and boycott\u201d \u201cinterference with judicial independence, procedural violations, and acts that curb citizen rights and freedom.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Li Zhuang, a Beijing lawyer who defended a man accused of mafia crimes, found himself picked up, indicted and jailed by the Chongqing government on Bo Xilai\u2019s watch, shock rippled through China\u2019s legal world. Consequently, Bo\u2019s downfall found many lawyers and scholars jubilant. What they did not foresee is that, after Xi Jinping took over, rights lawyers and the media are to have an even worse time than before.<\/p>\n
The case against Pu Zhiqiang, compared against Li Zhuang\u2019s, is ordained by higher-ranking officials, and furnished with more preposterous charges. The eloquent Pu became known in part through his moving defenses of two famous activists: the irrepressible artist Ai Weiwei (\u827e\u672a\u672a), and Tan Zuoren (\u8c2d\u4f5c\u4eba), convicted of leaking \u201cstate secrets\u201d for compiling the names of children killed by tofu-dregs public schools in a 2008 earthquake. Now, Pu\u2019s eloquence has landed him in a prison cell. What is more, his defense lawyer Qu Zhenghong (\u5c48\u632f\u7ea2) was also detained under trumped-up charges. A few months later, the same thing happened to Xia Lin (\u590f\u9716), the defense lawyer hired on behalf of the scholar Guo Yushan (\u90ed\u7389\u95ea). Under these circumstances, it is hard to imagine who would dare to write an open letter to protest. Voicing discontent on the Internet in the guise of birthday wishes risks much already.<\/p>\n
Pu\u2019s case is a classic when it comes to the suppression of free speech. Three out of the four allegations listed in his arrest warrant are based only on the thirty-odd microblogs he published on his Sina account: Provocation of trouble, the fanning of ethnic hatred, and inciting separatism against the state. The one other crime of \u201cillegally obtaining information about other citizens\u201d refers to some investigations he carried out in collaboration with several newspapers, including Caijin, Southern Weekend (\u300a\u5357\u65b9\u5468\u672b\u300b) and Beijing News (\u300a\u65b0\u4eac\u62a5\u300b). Clearly, this too is a matter of free speech and media freedom.<\/p>\n
These days, China\u2019s political prisoners are almost all convicted on what they say. They hardly have the chance to do anything beyond speaking up, such as building an organization, raising money or mobilizing people to act. They have only to voice some views, write some articles, or even just tweet a few microblogs, and the government slams them in the clink for years. However, to invoke four crimes, two of which carry exceptionally long sentences, against a lawyer fond of giving vent to his opinions, is an unprecedented absurdity.<\/p>\n
Chen Youxi (\u9648\u6709\u897f), a well-known lawyer, said: \u201cEven if I were to take things from the government\u2019s point of view, I still have to be honest here: You guys picked up the wrong guy when you picked up Pu Zhiqiang. The immediate people who planned this arrest are not doing the government any favors. Let Pu go as soon as you can.\u201d Whether as a matter of sincere opinion or tactics, the hidden message behind what he said is that the top leadership may well not have wanted this to happen, and it only happened because the frontline workhorses were out of control.<\/p>\n
This assessment, however, undercounts too much the control the Communist Party leaders exercise over their own system, especially given the gloves-off style of Xi, who whipped the \u201ctiger hunt\u201d anti-corruption campaign into a sustained frenzy. Xi naturally does not need to know the details of every case. Rather, beyond their vaunted ability to concoct abuses and wrongful sentences, the public security workhorses are even more valued for being able to gauge, with precision, what their boss wants.<\/p>\n
If Pu is convicted of the crimes he is being accused of, the shadow cast by his case over China\u2019s legal and media world will be enduring, and will last a long time.<\/p>\n
\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2014\u2013<\/p>\n
Ching Ping (\u957f\u5e73) is a veteran Chinese journalist and commentator of current affairs. He lives in Germany now.<\/p>\n
Related:<\/p>\n
Tackling a Wall of Lies \u2013 Profile of Pu Zhiqiang, a Chinese Human Rights Lawyer, Albertine Ren, September 14, 2014<\/p>\n
China\u2019s Empty Promise of Rule by Law, by Teng Biao, January 6, 2015<\/p>\n
(Translated by Louisa Chang)<\/p>\n
Chinese original<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n For detail please visit here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Published: January 20, 2015 PU ZHIQIANG … Continue reading