{"id":6216,"date":"2015-12-13T22:40:28","date_gmt":"2015-12-14T03:40:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/?p=6216"},"modified":"2015-12-21T03:14:19","modified_gmt":"2015-12-21T08:14:19","slug":"china-free-prominent-lawyer-pu-zhiqiang","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/china-free-prominent-lawyer-pu-zhiqiang","title":{"rendered":"China: Free Prominent Lawyer Pu Zhiqiang"},"content":{"rendered":"
Persecution of Outspoken Lawyers Mocks \u2018Rule of Law\u2019 Claims<\/h5>\n
\"Pu<\/a>

Chinese human rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang talks to media in Beijing in this July 20, 2012 picture. \u00a9 2012 Reuters<\/p><\/div>\n

(New York) \u2013 Chinese <\/span>authorities should drop all charges against prominent rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang<\/span> and free him immediately. Pu is on trial before the Beijing Number 2 Intermediate People\u2019s Court for alleged crimes of \u201cinciting ethnic hatred\u201d and \u201ccreating a disturbance\u201d for seven microblog, or \u201cWeibo,\u201d posts that he published online between July 2011 and May 2014.<\/p>\n

\u201cNothing Pu Zhiqiang has written has violated any law, but the authorities\u2019 treatment of him certainly has,\u201d said Sophie Richardson<\/span><\/a>, China director at Human Rights Watch. \u201cA guilty verdict will be an indictment of the Chinese government, its law, and its legal system \u2013 not of Pu.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pu posted the seven Weibo comments<\/span> <\/a><\/span>a total of 12 times between July 2011 and May 2014. The prosecution alleges that three of them, criticizing <\/span>two government officials and a pro-government author, \u201ccreated disturbances\u201d because they used \u201cinsulting language\u201d that \u201cled to adverse social impact.\u201d The other four posts <\/span>cited as evidence of \u201cinciting ethnic hatred\u201d criticized the central government\u2019s policies in Xinjiang and Tibet that repress minorities\u2019 religious and ethnic identities and called for reform. The indictment says Pu\u2019s messages had \u201cprovoked ethnic relations\u2026and damaged ethnic unity.\u201d There is no publicly available evidence of an \u201cadverse social impact\u201d or any other consequences of Pu\u2019s postings.<\/p>\n

His lawyer had earlier said <\/span>that Pu faces up to eight years in prison.<\/p>\n

On May 3, 2014, Pu attended a small private seminar in Beijing on the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre with more than a dozen other activists. The following night, Beijing police took Pu from his home and detained him on the charge of \u201ccreating a disturbance.\u201d He has now been in detention for 19 months.<\/p>\n

Pu, who has diabetes, has had access to insulin and other diabetes medication and has been taken at least once to a Beijing hospital while being held in Beijing Number 1 Detention Center. Pu\u2019s lawyer earlier submitted a request to have him released on medical grounds, but the application was denied. In China\u2019s detention centers, medical care is rudimentary at best.<\/p>\n

Pu was a student activist who participated in the pro-democracy protests of 1989. After the Tiananmen Massacre, he became a lawyer and taught law for three years at the Beijing Broadcasting Institute, now the Beijing Communications University. He is one of China\u2019s most well-known lawyers and was featured regularly in the mainstream Chinese press. In 2013, he was chosen by the state-run magazine China Newsweek<\/em> as the most influential person promoting the rule of law in China.<\/p>\n

Pu is best known for advocating the abolition of the abusive administrative detention system known as Re-education Through Labor by representing detainees in a number of high-profile cases. He has pushed for an end to shuanggui<\/em>, a form of arbitrary detention used by the Chinese Communist Party to investigate disciplinary violations. Pu is also known for his defense of high-profile activists, including the artist Ai Weiwei. Although Pu has frequently been questioned by police for his rights-related work, this is the first time he has been prosecuted.<\/p>\n

Since President Xi Jinping came into power in March 2013, his government has further limited already meager civil and political freedoms. It has carried out a wide-ranging assault on civil society and detained hundreds of activists, targeting lawyers in particular. In July 2015, nearly 300 human rights lawyers and activists were detained <\/span>in connection with the case of the Fengrui Law Firm. At least 40 lawyers remain in detention, many of them held incommunicado and in secret detention and are at risk of torture.<\/p>\n

Despite promises to usher in an era of \u201cthe rule of law\u201d during the Fourth Plenum of the 18th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party in late 2014, President Xi\u2019s government has demonstrated that the law remains a tool of the party, and not for ordinary people to defend themselves against arbitrary state power. In addition to using the legal system to punish outspoken individuals and whistleblowers, the government has drafted and passed new laws in the name of state security to further empower the security apparatus to suppress critics perceived to challenge one-party rule.<\/p>\n

\u201cPu is the canary in the coalmine \u2013 his sentence will indicate the extent to which the government will further deprive civil society of the air it needs to flourish,\u201d Richardson said. \u201cGenuine respect for the rule of law requires Pu\u2019s immediate release.\u201d<\/p>\n

Source: https:\/\/www.hrw.org\/news\/2015\/12\/13\/china-free-prominent-lawyer-pu-zhiqiang<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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