Chinese police block access to trial of top human rights lawyer

Pu’s essentially closed trail was held before Beijing No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court, and lasted for just three hours and 15 minutes.

Small protests outside of the Second Intermediate People’s Court in Beijing were broken up by authorities.

The U.S. Embassy in Beijing issued a press release calling for Pu’s release on Monday, saying he was “being tried under vague charges”.

“Pu’s trial is extremely important – he’s the ultimate canary in the coal mine”, Maya Wang, a China researcher for Human Rights Watch said.

Teng Biao, a prominent Chinese human rights lawyers and now a visiting scholar at Harvard Kennedy School, at a restaurant in Beijing, China, on August 14, 2013. “This is why he is now under arrest. We support him, and that means that we are also defending our own rights”, he said.

 He has represented a number of high-profile dissidents, including artist Ai Weiwei and members of the New Citizens Movement group, which campaigns for Chinese leaders to declare their wealth publicly.

As the trial was proceeding, authorities and security officials scuffled with his assistants, Western diplomats and journalists gathered outside the courthouse. Scenes of pushing, shouting and shoving outside a Beijing courthouse this week were orchestrated by plainclothes security officers identified by a sticker familiar around the world – the yellow decal identified since the 1970s with the slogan “Have a Nice Day”.

At least one foreign journalist was also slammed to the ground, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China said in an open letter of complaint. Pu went on trial Monday on charges of provoking trouble with commentaries on social media that were critical of the ruling Communist Party. “He said that if these microblog posts had caused injury to other people, he apologizes for it. He had no intention to incite ethnic hatred or pick quarrels and provoke trouble”, his lawyer, Mo, said.

“We want freedom of speech, democracy and peace”, he said, sitting on the wet pavement with his arms outstretched.

Chinese President Xi Jinping has spearheaded a crack down on freedom of expression, civil activists and human rights attorneys since coming to power in late 2012.

Mr Pu was detained shortly after attending a May 2014 meeting to discuss commemorating 25 years since the Tiananmen Square massacre, at a time when authorities were keeping a lid on any public commemorations of the event.

The state-run Global Times newspaper said in an editorial at the time that he had crossed “a legal red line” by associating himself with a topic still considered taboo in China.

Dan Biers, a senior official from the U.S. embassy, was pushed and shoved as he attempted to read a statement outside the court condemning Mr Pu’s treatment.

“They are simply forcing others to accept their will and showing that they will never accept outside sanctions on China’s human rights situation”, Cabestan said.

A former colleague of Pu told the Post that his popularity has led to him being perceived as a threat amid pressure on lawyers and rights advocates.

Amnesty International says there have been “repeated procedural irregularities” in his prosecution, including a prolonged pre-trial detention, denial of adequate medical care and prosecutors refusing to disclose evidence against him to his defence lawyers.