{"id":5171,"date":"2015-05-24T22:50:21","date_gmt":"2015-05-25T02:50:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/?p=5171"},"modified":"2015-05-22T22:55:43","modified_gmt":"2015-05-23T02:55:43","slug":"jailed-chinese-rights-lawyer-dismisses-ethnic-hatred-picking-quarrels-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/jailed-chinese-rights-lawyer-dismisses-ethnic-hatred-picking-quarrels-charges","title":{"rendered":"Jailed Chinese Rights Lawyer Dismisses \u2018Ethnic Hatred,\u2019 \u2018Picking Quarrels\u2019 Charges"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"image<\/a>2015-05-22
\nPu Zhiqiang (front right) attends a seminar about the Tiananmen crackdown in Beijing, May 3, 2014.
\nPhoto courtesy of CHRD
\nJailed rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang dismissed charges of “incitement to racial hatred,” and “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble,\u201d his defense attorney said Friday after meeting with him in a prison in China\u2019s capital Beijing, where he awaits trial more than one year after his detention.<\/p>\n

Beijing-based lawyer Mo Shaoping told RFA\u2019s Cantonese Service in a phone interview that he had met with Pu early on Friday to discuss the charges leveled against his client in a formal indictment issued last week and how to proceed with their defense strategy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t talk much\u2014mainly about the indictment, which has been sent to him [in a formal document],\u201d Mo said.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe believes the two charges still have no merit, but there is nothing he can do but wait for his trial,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mo told RFA he was unable to discuss his client\u2019s defense strategy ahead of the trial\u2014for which a date has yet to be set\u2014saying it was \u201cnot convenient.\u201d<\/p>\n

“Not convenient” is a phrase often used by Chinese activists on the phone to signal surveillance or police presence.<\/p>\n

Mo has said that Pu, 50, faces up to 10 years in prison for each of the two charges he currently faces.<\/p>\n

Pu was formally indicted more than a year after his detention following an event marking the anniversary of the military crackdown on the 1989 student-led pro-democracy movement.<\/p>\n

The South China Morning Post cited Pu\u2019s indictment as saying he had been incriminated for his scathing remarks on the government\u2019s handling of an ethnic conflict in southwestern China last year and his sarcastic comments on two officials.<\/p>\n

For the charge of \u201cinciting ethnic hatred\u201d, the indictment said that between January 2012 and May last year Pu had \u201csowed ethnic discord\u201d by posting comments on the knife attack at a Kunming railway station in March last year on several Sina Weibo accounts, the Post said.<\/p>\n

For the second charge, the indictment said that Pu had also \u201cvented his emotions\u201d online to insult Shen Jilan, an elderly legislator who claims never to have voted \u201cno\u201d in parliamentary sessions, and Tian Zhenhui, a spokeswoman at a state railway design company blamed for providing a flawed signaling system that caused a high-speed train crash in Zhejiang province, in July 2011.<\/p>\n

Previous charges, including “incitement to subvert state power,” “incitement to separatism,” and “illegally obtaining citizens’ information” have been dropped, a second member of Pu’s defense team, Shang Baojun, told RFA last week. Pu had also rejected those charges.<\/p>\n

Authorities in Beijing recently released on bail Pu\u2019s niece and former defense attorney Qu Zhenhong, who was initially held in May 2014 under criminal detention on suspicion of “illegally gathering citizens’ information,” after she agreed to represent him.<\/p>\n

Beijing-based lawyer Liu Xiaoyuan said Qu has been released on a technicality, because the same charge had been dropped against Pu, with whom she was to have shared a trial.<\/p>\n

For detail please visit here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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