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Human rights activist Wang Lihong
tried in Beijing
AFP, BEIJING
Alleged undercover police
officers scuffle with rights activist Zhao Lianhai, center, and his supporters
outside a courthouse in Beijing yesterday.
Photo: EPA
Chinese human rights activist Wang Lihong
(¤ý¯ïíû) went on trial in Beijing yesterday witnesses said, nearly four months
after she was arrested as part of a widespread crackdown on dissent.
Wang, 55, a doctor and a veteran of China¡¦s pro-democracy movement in Tiananmen
Square in 1989, was arrested on April 21 and is charged with creating a
disturbance, the group Chinese Human Rights Defenders said.
Prominent artist and activist Ai Weiwei (¦ã¥¼¥¼), recently released from detention,
tweeted his support for Wang earlier this week.
¡§If you don¡¦t speak out for Wang Lihong, you are not just a person who will not
stand up for fairness and justice, you do not have self-respect,¡¨ Ai wrote.
Rights groups say Wang¡¦s charges are linked to her support for activists who
used the Internet to call for Chinese citizens to join anti-government protests
echoing unrest in the Middle East and Africa.
The charge she faces carries a maximum sentence of five years imprisonment,
Joshua Rosenzweig of the human rights group Dui Hua Foundation said by telephone
from Hong Kong.
It is a catch-all charge used frequently in the past five to six years to
silence anti-government protests, he said.
¡§This particular crime or offense is somewhat notorious in the Chinese criminal
code for being a pocket offense ¡X anything you want can be put into it,¡¨
Rosenzweig said.
Dozens of police were stationed outside the courtroom to keep about 30
protesters and Wang supporters in line, witnesses said via telephone.
A core of supporters chanted ¡§Wang Lihong is innocent¡¨ outside the courthouse,
they said.
Among Wang¡¦s supporters outside the court was activist Zhao Lianhai (»¯³s®ü), who
was briefly jailed in Beijing in May for campaigning for victims of a 2008
tainted milk scandal that killed six children and sickened 300,000.
Witnesses said police asked Zhao to leave the scene, but they allowed him to
stay when he refused to go.
Western diplomats hoping to observe the trial were kept waiting in a reception
area and denied access to the courtroom, a representative from the Czech embassy
said.
The diplomats included representatives from the US, the EU, Germany, Canada,
Norway, Austria, the Netherlands and Switzerland.
No journalists were allowed into the hearing.
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