Beijing Puts Grassroots Citizen Activists On Trial
BEIJING, CHINA (ASSOCIATED PRESS) — Several citizen activists who want
many of the same things Chinese leader Xi Jinping says he wants — less
corruption and a fairer society — stand trial this week in Beijing in
cases reflecting Xi's intense campaign to quash any potential threat to
one-party rule.
"It is really the effort by the regime to prevent any organized opposition," said Dali Yang, a political scientist at the University of Chicago. "One of the many ironies is that the calls by the defendants are authorized by the Chinese law, and it is very hard to argue that they are subverting the government."
The activists, members of nascent, grassroots groups known as the New Citizens movement, are typically charged with gathering crowds to disrupt public order. The prosecutions come amid the Chinese leadership's broader crackdown over the past year on dissent, including the silencing and detentions of influential bloggers and advocates for minority rights in Tibetan and Muslim Uighur areas.
"It is fear of a big crisis that might overthrow the party," said political observer Willy Lam of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. "The crackdown is a sign of weakness." The centerpiece of the New Citizens crackdown is the trial of the movement's founder, lawyer Xu Zhiyong, which opened Wednesday in Beijing's No. 1 Intermediate People's Court.
He is charged with disrupting public order in connection with groups of up to 100 people gathering in public places to call for education equality or the disclosure of public officials' assets to curb corruption. The vaguely defined charge can result in a prison sentence of several years.
No media or outside observers have been allowed to attend the proceedings, and police on Wednesday blocked journalists and supporters from getting near the venue. Xu has been seeking social changes within Chinese law and wants to foster a civil society by making more Chinese aware of their rights as citizens. He has been cautious not to form any organization, though the charges against him appear to be linked in part to his call for people to gather for monthly dinners to discuss China's constitution.
At least six other people — Zhao Changqing, Ding Jiaxi, Li Wei, Yuan Dong, Hou Xin and Zhang Baocheng — go on trial later in the week in Beijing on the same charge. They are believed to be the movement's more active members.
Critics have called the crackdown hypocritical given that one of the movement's foremost objectives — fighting graft— aligns with Xi's hallmark campaign to crack down on party and government corruption. Both the movement and the government also call for equity in education.
"Instead of President Xi Jinping's promised clampdown on corruption, we are seeing a crackdown against those that want to expose it," said Roseann Rife, East Asia research director at Amnesty International.
The U.S. State Department has expressed concern that Xu's prosecution amounts to retribution against his social activism and urged Beijing to release him. During Tuesday's regular briefing, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said Xu's case is "a regular criminal case" that is being handled in accordance with China's law. He said foreign countries should not interfere.
In an additional trial in the southern city of Guangzhou, Liu Yuandong, an activist involved in public rallies for a weekly newspaper that had been censored by party officials, will go on trial Friday on charges of disrupting public order and falsely reporting capital in business registration.
Liu is one of the founders of the Southern Street movement, separate from New Citizens, but also an amorphous, grassroots group with similar goals. The Southern Street movement, however, also calls for an end to one-party rule.
Video producer Aritz Parra in Beijing contributed to this report.
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