Scuffles as celebrated lawyer goes on trial in China

The Guardian’s Beijing correspondent, Tom Phillips, reported that scuffles erupted during “chaotic scenes as scores of Chinese police officers and plainclothes security forces in face masks attempted to physically drive supporters, diplomats and journalists from the area around the court”.

Authorities dragged at least three people away while senior USA diplomat Dan Biers was reportedly pushed by police as he tried to read a statement condemning the trial, the AFP reports.

A prominent Chinese human rights lawyer went on trial Monday and potentially faces eight years in prison over seven social media posts.

“[Pu] should not be subject to continuing repression but should be allowed to contribute to the building of a…”, Biers said before being drowned out and bundled away by bellowing Chinese police officers.

In the past two years, the government has launched a crackdown on online rumours, detained hundreds of human rights lawyers in a nationwide sweep, and jailed a journalist on a charge of leaking state secrets.

While the United States expressed concern that Pu was “being tried under vague charges” and urged China to release him, security officials barred foreign diplomats, including from the USA and European Union, and journalists from witnessing the proceedings amid heavy security presence.

Mr Pu’s lawyer quoted him as saying in court that he was prepared to apologise to anyone offended.

“This is a government that has had not the slightest hesitation in the last two years about detaining, disappearing, torturing, and/or prosecuting people who have done nothing wrong”, said Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch.

The Foreign Correspondents Club of China has issued a statement on Twit Longer denouncing the “assaults” by authorities on journalists covering the Pu Zhiqiang trial.

The trial finished without a verdict announced, BBC reports. During Pu’s trial, a few dozen supporters gathered and chanted “Pu Zhiqiang is innocent” outside the courthouse.

In four of the seven posts, Pu had called for reform in Beijing’s policies toward Xinjiang and Tibet and the religious and ethnic in the regions – resulting in charges of “inciting ethnic hatred” for posts that allegedly “provoked ethnic relations… and damaged ethnic unity”.

“This is really a case of freedom of expression, in which no harm to anyone has been proven”, Mo said in an interview after the trial.

Activists and human rights groups say that since 2012, Chinese President Xi Jinping has presided over the country’s most intense crackdown on dissent since the years following the massacre.

The lawyer, who defended the artist Ai Weiwei, and has handled a number of sensitive cases, has been in custody for 19 months and denied contact with his family during that time. Pu also mocked Mao Xinyu, who is Mao Zedong’s grandson.

One of Pu Zhiqiang’s attorneys, Shang Baojun, stated that the trial came to an end just after noon and that no judgement had been given. Pu is nearly certain to be found guilty – more than 99.9 percent of defendants in criminal cases were found guilty by Chinese courts in 2013, according to official figures. “Everyone who appears to challenge the law, even tactfully, will pay the price”.