Trial Over Human Rights Lawyer Pu Zhiqiang’s Tweets Sparks Scuffles in China

“The trial of Pu is extremely sensitive”.

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. Pu went on trial Monday on charges of provoking tro… Pu went on trial Monday on cha…

Maya Wang, a researcher at Human Rights Watch, told NBC News that while Pu has been outspoken over the years, he has always prided himself in his ability to balance his advocacy with the shifting political environment in China.

The trial is taking place at Beijing’s Number Two Intermediate People’s Court.

Pu took up the law after joining the pro-democracy demonstrations on Tiananmen Square in 1989, which were violently broken up by the army.

Dozens of Pu Zhiqiang’s supporters travelled from across the country, some for thousands of kilometres, to protest outside the courtroom in Beijing.

The start of his trial sparked outrage from free speech activists and a call from the U.S. Embassy in Beijing to release him.

A human-rights lawyer who defended Chinese dissidents is awaiting a verdict in Beijing after a three-hour trial marked by police tussles with journalists and diplomats outside the courthouse. “This is why he is now under arrest”.

About 50 protesters had gathered at the courthouse along with two dozen journalists and about a dozen Western diplomats, but all of them were denied entrance.

Police repeatedly clashed with them, with officers and men in civilian dress – identified by “smiley face” stickers on their clothing – pushing them hundreds of metres away. The group said at least one foreign journalist was slammed to the ground while others were pushed away from the site or summoned to last-minute meetings with authorities.

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.

The posts include messages questioning a state media account of a deadly knife attack blamed on assailants from the mainly Muslim region of Xinjiang, and another accusing Communist Party officials of “lying”.

Pu Zhiqiang faces charges of “inciting racial hatred” and “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” which could earn him eight years imprisonment.

“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.

The lawyers are arguing that there is no need for Pu’s prolonged detention, because he doesn’t represent a danger to society, and have out at repeated delays and extensions to his stay in Beijing’s police-run No. 3 Detention Center.

The court did not answer phone calls, and prosecutors could not immediately be reached for comment.

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.

Mr Mo said the court did not ask Pu specifically whether he was pleading guilty. Dan Biers, an official at the U.S. embassy in Beijing, was jostled down the street by police as he tried to read out a statement denouncing the lawyer’s treatment.