A prominent Chinese legal activist defiantly denounced a Chinese court as “absurd” on Friday as it upheld his jail sentence for supporting anti-corruption protests, his lawyer said.
Xu Zhiyong (許志永), 40, was sentenced to four years in prison in January for backing demonstrations in which a handful of activists held up banners calling for Chinese government officials to disclose their assets, as Beijing cracks down on a burgeoning rights movement.
Beijing’s high court rejected his appeal and upheld its original verdict, his lawyer Zhang Qingfang (張慶方) said, but Xu remained resolute.
“This absurd judgement cannot halt the tide of human progress,” he said Xu told the court. “The communist dictatorship is bound to disperse like haze, and the light of freedom and justice will illuminate the East.”
The legal academic is a founder and central figure in the New Citizens Movement, a loose-knit network, which campaigns on corruption, access to education and other issues.
China has put Xu and 10 other members of the movement on trial this year on charges of “gathering a crowd to disturb public order” over the protests last year.
“This is absolutely an illegal and ridiculous decision,” Zhang said of the appeal ruling.
Amnesty International said it was a “mockery of justice.”
“Xu Zhiyong is a prisoner of conscience and he should be released immediately and unconditionally,” Amnesty researcher William Nee said in a statement. “The authorities must end this merciless persecution of all those associated with the New Citizens Movement.”
US Department of State spokeswoman Jen Psaki branded the ruling “retribution for his public campaign to expose official corruption,” and called for his immediate release.
“We remain deeply concerned that the prosecution of Xu and others is part of a deepening pattern of arrests and detentions of public interest lawyers, Internet activists, labor activists, journalists, religious leaders and others, who peacefully challenge official Chinese policies and actions,” she added.
The US and the EU condemned the original verdict against Xu and an EU diplomat said representatives from at least 10 countries attempted to observe the appeal hearing were denied access by Chinese police.
Police “grabbed and shoved” at least one diplomat outside the Chinese courthouse, said the envoy, who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the case.
Asked about the accusation, Beijing’s Ministry for Foreign Affairs spokesman Hong Lei (洪磊) told a regular briefing that China “safeguards the legitimate rights of diplomats,” but also “requests that diplomats respect China’s laws.”
“The ruling was made by the judicial authorities in accordance with the law,” he said of the court’s decision, adding that “China is a country governed by the rule of law.”
Xu studied law at the elite Peking University and in the last decade became one of an emerging group of “rights defense” lawyers, pushing for political change through court cases.
China has made significant reforms to its legal system since the 1970s and says it guarantees its citizens’ legal rights, but it continues to use the courts to control protesters and intellectuals speaking out against government policy.
Xu came to nationwide prominence in 2003, campaigning against a form of extra-legal detention allowing Chinese police to detain people arbitrarily if they traveled away from their rural hometowns. The law was ultimately changed.
He provided legal aid to several defendants deemed sensitive by the CCP, including blind human rights lawyer Chen Guangcheng (陳光誠) — who later made a spectacular escape from house arrest — and families suing amid the toxic milk powder scandal in 2008.
Associates of Xu released a message from him on Friday, in which he stated: “Let us in the depths of our hearts, in our daily lives, on the Internet, and on every part of this vast nation, firmly and loudly declare the identity that rightfully belongs to us: I am a citizen, we are citizens.”
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not