Two closed-door hearings of prominent Chinese activists yesterday drew sharp criticism for violating due process and chilling freedom of expression as Chinese authorities tighten oversight of public speech.
Veteran journalist Gao Yu (高玉), 70, went on trial yesterday in closed-door proceedings in Beijing on accusations of leaking state secrets. Police and plainclothes agents blocked journalists from accessing the Beijing No. 3 People’s Intermediate Court, but confirmed proceedings were under way.
Across the country, in the tumultuous Xinjiang region, a sealed jailhouse court upheld the separatism conviction and life sentence for Ilham Tohti, a noted academic from China’s Muslim Uighur minority who frequently criticized the government while advocating ethnic pride and greater economic opportunity.
Both proceedings highlight tensions between China’s vision of rule of law, a top priority of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), and Western notions of judicial fairness.
“If Gao Yu and Ilham Tohti were to receive genuinely fair hearings, the charges against them would be dismissed as blatant political persecution,” Amnesty International China researcher William Nee said in a statement on Thursday.
Gao is one of the best-known intellectuals to have been imprisoned for supporting the 1989 Tiananmen pro-democracy protests. She was detained in April for illegally obtaining a Chinese Communist Party document and providing it to an overseas Web site for publication, according to previous state media reports.
State media did not identify the document, but it appeared to refer to a strategy paper — known as Document No. 9 — that reportedly argued for aggressive curbs on the spread of Western democracy, universal values, civil society, freedom of press and other ideological concepts the party believed threatened its legitimacy.
Human rights activists have said Gao’s case raises concerns that the authorities are using state secrets charges to silence government critics.
Ilham Tohti was accused of fomenting unrest during a closed-door trial in September in the regional capital of Urumqi.
His supporters portray him as a moderate intent on mediating conflicts between Xinjiang’s native Uighurs and China’s ethnic Han majority, which have cost about 400 lives in the past 20 months.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese