Out for Justice

SUPPORTERS OF HUMAN RIGHTS in China were heartened when, during her recent visit to Beijing, Assistant Secretary of State Ellen R. Sauerbrey urged the Chinese government to release Chen Guangcheng. Chen, a 35-year-old blind legal advocate from the eastern province of Shandong, had incurred the wrath of local officials in June 2005 when he helped villagers file an unprecedented class-action lawsuit. The suit charged health officials with subjecting the villagers to sterilization and forced abortion in order to meet Beijing's birth-control quotas.

Assistant Secretary of State Sauerbrey's plea fell on deaf ears. A mere nine days later, on August 18, Chen Guangcheng was tried in a proceeding that, according to his defense lawyers, is itself illegal under Chinese law.

The night before the trial was scheduled to begin, three lawyers who had traveled from Beijing to defend Chen were accused by police of stealing a wallet and were detained. Two of them, Zhang Lihui and Li Fangping, were released after roughly two hours of questioning. A third lawyer, Xu Zhiyong, was kept in custody.

The next morning, hundreds of police surrounded the courthouse to block Chen's supporters from attending the trial. With one member of the defense team in police custody and Chinese authorities having twice rejected a request by counsel to consult with their client, Chen's defense team asked for a postponement of the trial. This request, too, was rejected. Despite strong and repeated protests from the defendant, the court assigned Chen two lawyers whom he had never met.

In an interview with Radio Free Asia following the two-hour trial, Chen's older brother, one of three family members who attended the trial, described the proceedings as "unbearable." The prosecutor, he reported, read out loud the offenses while Chen kept silent throughout. The judge then announced that the defendant's silence amounted to an admission of guilt. Finally, when the two court-appointed defense attorneys were asked by the judge if they had anything to say, they voiced no objection.

Less than two hours after the trial ended, Xu Zhiyong, the lawyer for Chen who had been detained on charges of stealing a wallet, was told that he was free to go. Speaking to Radio Free Asia after his release, Xu, a deputy of a district people's congress in Beijing, characterized the trial as "utterly absurd."

Prior to going on trial, Chen had been kept under house arrest in his native village of Dongshigu, Yinan County, since August 2005. On February 5 of this year, between three and four hundred Dongshigu villagers clashed with police in a protest against Chen's house arrest and the harassment of his relatives. Three police vehicles were overturned by the angry crowd and several protesters were slightly injured.

On March 11, the self-taught jurist, known affectionately as the "barefoot lawyer," vanished from his home. For three months his family did not know his whereabouts. Repeated inquiries by Radio Free Asia to local police during this time were met with a standard response of "don't know."

Three months later, Yinan county officials acknowledged that they had Chen in custody. Chen's lawyers and supporters began mounting a rescue campaign, which included a press conference scheduled for June 19 in Beijing. However, this event was canceled after would-be participants were harassed and prevented by police from attending. On that same day, Chen's 70-year-old mother, his three-year-old son, and his older brother were kidnapped outside the home of one of his lawyers in Beijing by some 10 unidentified men and transported back to Dongshigu village.

Two days later, on June 21, Chen's wife was informed that the state prosecutor's office had formally approved Chen's arrest on charges of "willful destruction of public property" and "gathering a crowd to disrupt traffic." Two defense attorneys, including Li Jinsong, visited him that day at the Yinan County Detention Center. Chen told them he had been warned that "it's not abnormal for someone to die in a detention center." Commenting on the death threat against Chen, Li Jinsong told Radio Free Asia that he was making plans to visit Chen's wife in Dongshigu village in a couple of days, and that he was expecting "trouble."

And trouble there was. On June 23, Li Jinsong's taxi was stopped by more than a dozen men before it could enter the village. Li Jinsong, another member of Chen's defense team, and the cab driver were all forced out of the car and roughed up. After returning to Beijing the next day, Li was advised by an anonymous caller that he was "seeking death."