Britain attacks conviction of Chinese lawyer Pu Zhiqiang

The court on Tuesday said Pu Zhiqiang was guilty of provoking troubles and inciting ethnic hatred, and sentenced him to three years in prison but also announced that the sentence will be suspended for three years.

At his trial, Mr. Pu confirmed that he wrote the Weibo posts in question and offered to apologize to anyone who may have been wounded by them, according to his lawyer, Mr. Mo.

“We urge the Chinese authorities to restore all of Mr Pu’s rights and permit him to resume his work as one of China’s pre-eminent lawyers”, said Benjamin Weber, spokesman for the U.S. embassy in Beijing.

Activists said the three-year suspended sentence for Pu would serve as a strong reminder to other rights lawyers that the Communist Party, now engaged in a severe clampdown on dissent, would brook no challenge to its rule. He is now under “residential surveillance”.

“He said he thanks everyone and he wants to rest”, he added.

Still, the guilty verdict disqualifies Pu from practising law, and he must comply with certain restrictions and not commit crimes during the three-year period or risk being jailed.

Pu is the latest to be tried in a crackdown on dissidents in China.

Pu, 49, was detained in May 2014 and formally arrested the following month after attending a low-key seminar in a private home to mark the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Hundreds, possibly thousands, of protesters were killed in the crackdown, and the topic remains taboo in China. If he abides by the law and complies with conditions set by the court, Pu’s sentence will be commuted.

“The disgraceful police operation outside Pu Zhiqiang’s trial only underscores why China needs defenders of free speech like Pu more than ever”, Nee said. The 49-year-old lawyer is one of China’s most outspoken advocates of rights of the underprivileged, and his forceful courtroom style is seen to have contributed to the success two years ago of a campaign to scrap China’s re-education through labor system – which previously allowed police to send suspects to labor camps for up to four years without trial.

GREENE: All right, that’s NPR’s Anthony Kuhn, speaking to us from Beijing about the Chinese government targeting human rights lawyers.

Pu was found guilty by a Beijing court for “inciting ethnic hatred” and “picking quarrels” in social media posts besides posting online comments critical of Communist Party. A further five supporters have not been heard from since and it is feared they are also detained.

“After all, an innocent man has been locked up for 19 months”.

Pu, 50, was sentenced to three years in prison but given a three-year reprieve, said lawyer Shang Baojun. “It’s good news but with a feeling of helplessness”. Amnesty said in a statement that the sentence was “a deliberate attempt by the Chinese authorities to shackle a champion of freedom of expression”.

He also derided a veteran delegate to the national congress who had not cast a vote in six decades.