{"id":6460,"date":"2016-02-02T08:14:35","date_gmt":"2016-02-02T13:14:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/?p=6460"},"modified":"2016-02-03T08:20:16","modified_gmt":"2016-02-03T13:20:16","slug":"case-of-chinese-free-speech-activist-the-butcher-moved-to-tianjian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chinesepen.org\/english\/case-of-chinese-free-speech-activist-the-butcher-moved-to-tianjian","title":{"rendered":"Case of Chinese Free Speech Activist ‘The Butcher’ Moved to Tianjian"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Wu

Wu Gan stages protest outside Jiangxi High Court, May 19, 2015. Boxun<\/p><\/div>\n

Authorities in the southeastern Chinese province of Fujian have transferred the subversion case of a prominent free speech activist known as “the Butcher” to the northern port city of Tianjin, his lawyer said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Wu Gan, 42, was initially detained last year and handed a 10-day administrative sentence, before being placed under criminal detention on suspicion of “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble,” “libel,” and “incitement to subvert state power.”<\/p>\n

According to his lawyer Wu Kuiming, who is still trying to find out where Wu is being held, the “libel” charge was later dropped and his case transferred to Tianjin.<\/p>\n

Wu Kuiming said it is likely that the authorities are now treating him as part of the nationwide crackdown begun on lawyers and rights activists on July 9, 2015 with a raid on the Beijing Fengrui law firm.<\/p>\n

“His formal arrest notification number is 24, while [Beijing rights activist] Hu Shigen’s is 21, [Fengrui] boss Zhou Shifeng’s is 22, while [rights lawyer] Li Heping’s is 23,” Wu Kuiming said.<\/p>\n

While police in Wu’s home province of Fujian recommended state prosecutors formally arrest him, and critical articles about him have appeared in China’s tightly-controlled state media, his case may have been transferred in a bid to put further pressure on him, he said.<\/p>\n

Not giving in<\/h5>\n

“He hasn’t given in, and he has refused to confess to these crimes,” Wu Kuiming said. “If he had cooperated, they would definitely have put him on [state broadcaster] CCTV.”<\/p>\n

“From the authorities’ point of view, the best possible outcome is that they agree to go on CCTV [for a televised confession],\u201d he explained. \u201cThe fact that they haven’t done this [to Wu] means they are having trouble getting a confession out of him.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wu’s initial detention came as he staged a performance protest he titled “selling my body to raise funds” in Nanchang city, Jiangxi province.<\/p>\n

He was trying to help finance a legal defense for four men who rights campaigners say were wrongly jailed by a court in Jiangxi’s Leping city in 2000 for robbery, rape, and dismembering a corpse.<\/p>\n

A May 28 article in the state-run news agency Xinhua attacked Wu Gan for his criticism of the police killing of a man at the Qing’an railway station in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang earlier the same month.<\/p>\n

Rights activists say Wu likely first drew the ire of the authorities when he posted online his doubts about the credibility of the government\u2019s investigation of the shooting.<\/p>\n

Fighter for social justice<\/h5>\n

Zhejiang rights lawyer Yan Huafeng said Wu also launched his own investigation into what he believed was a gross miscarriage of justice in the Leping case, collecting video and audio testimony from witnesses and posting them online.<\/p>\n

“From what we know of him, we see the Butcher as man who is passionate about social justice, who loves a good fight against injustice,” Yan said.<\/p>\n

“He got himself quite deeply involved in the Qing’an [police shooting] and that’s probably the point at which he fell afoul of someone in authority,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I think that his actions on the whole were beneficial to society, or aimed at resolving social conflicts.”<\/p>\n

Reported by Xin Lin for RFA’s Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.<\/p>\n

Source: http:\/\/www.rfa.org\/english\/news\/china\/wu-gan-moved-02022016121145.html<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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