Awarding of the Confucius Prize

"Landep News"

Wang Lihong

Chinese activist Wang Lihong appeared in court on Friday and is facing charges of creating disturbance after attending a demonstration in support of a group of detained bloggers. Her trial is part of a larger campaign initiated by Chinese authorities that targets potential threats to the regime: activists, lawyers, campaigners.

They were all under surveillance as police fears that the events that happened in the Arab world could spread in their country.

In spite of heavy police presence, dozens of people appeared in court to support Wang Lihong, who pleaded not guilty in a trial that lasted only a few hours, which is something unusual in China.

The activist’s lawyer told the press that he did not have enough time to present a defense in court, as he was interrupted on numerous occasions and cut short by the judge.

The verdict is expected in a few weeks but the lawyer is not sure that his client will be acquitted, because the case has been politicized. The maximum sentence for this kind of action is five years in prison.

One of those who showed support in court was Zhao Lianhai, a campaigner for the families with children that were poisoned with tainted milk powder. Lianhai said that the people of the country do not like the kind of injustice that is happening in China.

Wang Lihong’s prosecution seems part of a programmed crackdown on dissenters, after calls for a “Jasmine revolution” were heard in China, especially on the internet.

Her son believes that his mother is an example the authorities in Beijing want to make in order for all to see what happens to those who defy the system.

Wang Lihong was detained in March under the accusation of having supported the three bloggers in Fujian province, who had been accused of defamation.

The three bloggers were accused in March of slander after posting on internet information about a woman, Lin Xiuying, whose daughter she believes was murdered after being raped by a group of thugs with ties with the police in the Fujian province.

Police said that the woman died of abnormal pregnancy. One of the three was sentenced to two years in prison, while the other two to one each.

Awarding of the Confucius Prize

During the trial it was not clear whom exactly the three had offended, since no individual stepped forward to say that they felt offended, but the judge decided that the accusations regard the state himself, and that it was the state’s reputation that had to suffer out of this.

Observance of human rights is a very delicate matter in China, as the Asian country is on its way to becoming a superpower, with global ambitions.

More and more people in China complain that human rights are being infringed by a state which maintains a strict control of its population, including by instituting a censorship on internet, limiting the activity of those who would be considered the enemies of the people’s republic.

China was criticized last year for its reaction toward the awarding of the Nobel Prize for Peace to Chinese activist Liu Xaiobo, who at the time was serving time in prison under the same kind of charges related to the state offence.

China made a case out of it, trying to intimidate or convince different national delegations not to attend the ceremony in Oslo. The leaders of the Communist republic went as far as to institute some sort of counterpart to the prize in Oslo, called Confucius Peace Prize.

The launching of the prize was made in the same Communist manner with the usual chaotic organization, and was a failure from its first edition given that its winner never showed up, finding out about it in the media. Jimmy Carter and Nelson Mandela were nominees for the prize, while a former Taiwan president won it for improving ties with China.

By the time this was happening, Liu Xiaobo was in jail for incitement to subvert state power and co-authoring a call for democratic reforms.

China is projecting this way of understanding human rights also in its international relations, cutting economic deals with presidents like Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir or the president of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe, or by discretely supporting the junta in Burma.

Thank's for link:

Tweet