The retrial of a high-profile activist who exposed government abuses of China's one-child policy will take place this morning, one week after it was postponed, his lawyer said yesterday.
Chen Guangcheng (陳光誠), who is blind, last month unexpectedly won an appeal against his conviction in Shandong Province on charges of inciting the public and his case was sent back for retrial.
"The retrial begins at 8:30 Monday morning," Chen's lawyer, Li Jinsong, said by telephone.
Li and Chen's other lawyers arrived in Linyi County yesterday to prepare for the trial, and said they were constantly being followed by men who appeared to be part of the police force.
Li said about 30 policemen were preventing him and two other lawyers from entering the village of Dongshigu, where the reported disturbance occurred. Li said they were there to examine the site in preparation for today's trial.
"I reported to the police that these people were illegally restricting my right to personal movement nearly five hours ago, but so far the police bureau has not sent anyone out to stop these people," Li said.
Li, however, was able to meet with Chen's wife and mother, whose home was surrounded by police, Li said.
Li also said that a witness, Chen Gengjiang, who was coerced into testifying against Chen Guangcheng in August was taken away by yesterday.
Li said Chen Gengjiang "told me he had been tortured to say Chen [Guangcheng] made him smash the van. Now he's been taken away the day before the retrial. We're worried the police will threaten or torture him again."
Chen's five-member defense team -- made up of some of China's most prominent activist lawyers and a leading law professor from Beijing -- boycotted the initial trial in August after three of the team's members were detained by police on theft charges the night before the trial. Another was not permitted to examine evidence, while the fifth was beaten bbefore being taken in by police.
Chen, 35, was sentenced in August to four years and three months in jail for "property damage and organizing a mob to disturb traffic."
The activist was accused of getting several members of his family to help damage police cars, Xinhua said. It said his relatives gathered a bigger group that smashed windows at a police station, overturned cars and beat police officers.
Chen's case triggered international condemnation, including from the US government, which called it an example of China trampling on human rights.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
A top Vietnamese property tycoon was on Thursday sentenced to death in one of the biggest corruption cases in history, with an estimated US$27 billion in damages. A panel of three hand-picked jurors and two judges rejected all defense arguments by Truong My Lan, chair of major developer Van Thinh Phat, who was found guilty of swindling cash from Saigon Commercial Bank (SCB) over a decade. “The defendant’s actions ... eroded people’s trust in the leadership of the [Communist] Party and state,” read the verdict at the trial in Ho Chi Minh City. After the five-week trial, 85 others were also sentenced on
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of