Criminal Justice

The Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court will conduct the trial of prominent intellectual Liu Xiaobo on December 23, 2009, according to a December 21 Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) article. Prosecutors indicted Liu on December 10, according to a December 11 Radio Free Asia (RFA) article. Mo Shaoping, a defense lawyer whose law firm is handling Liu's case, told RFA that the prosecution's indictment alleges that Liu drafted and organized Charter 08, a document originally signed by more than 300 Chinese citizens and which calls for political reform and greater protection of human rights in China. Liu was taken into custody on December 8, 2008, a day before the charter was released.

The Wuhou District People's Court in Chengdu city, Sichuan province, sentenced rights activist Huang Qi on November 23, 2009, to three years in prison for illegal possession of state secrets, according to a New York Times (NYT) article of the same date. Authorities detained Huang in June 2008 after he used his human rights Web site to advocate for parents who lost children in school collapses during the May 2008 Sichuan earthquake. Boxun, a U.S.-based Chinese news Web site, posted a copy of the court's judgment on December 1. The court gave Huang the maximum sentence for violating Article 182, Paragraph 2, of the Criminal Law.

Beijing police have concluded their investigation against prominent intellectual and Charter 08 signatory Liu Xiaobo and transferred his case to prosecutors in early December 2009, according to a December 10 Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) article and December 9 articles by the Associated Press (via Washington Post) and New York Times. The New York Times reported that "Mr. Liu’s lawyer, Shang Baojun, said in a telephone interview Wednesday that the police had sent to the prosecutors a report accusing Mr.

In the early morning hours on September 13, 2009, Fushan county authorities in Shanxi province led over 400 public security officers in a violent raid against an unregistered Protestant church called the Shanxi Linfen Christian Church, according to eyewitness accounts reported by ChinaAid on September 15, AsiaNews Italy (ANI) on September 17, and Radio Free Asia (RFA) on September 21. The raid lasted for several hours and reportedly involved the use of two bulldozers to raze the factory building that served as a meeting place for the church. Linfen municipal officials characterized the raid as an effort to "ban illegal buildings," according to the RFA report.

The Suqian Intermediate People's Court in Jiangsu province on October 16, 2009, sentenced Guo Quan, formerly a university professor and a past member of one of the few state-approved "democratic" parties allowed in China, to 10 years in prison for "subversion of state power," according to a Human Rights in China (HRIC) press release of the same date. The court found that Guo used the Internet to organize an "illegal" political party called the "China New Democracy Party," recruited members for the party, published numerous "reactionary" articles online, called for a seven-day stay-at-home boycott of the government, and sought to "overthrow" the socialist system, according to the court judgment (English translation prepared by Dui Hua Foundation, Chinese).

Following the forceful police suppression of a demonstration by Uyghurs on July 5 and outbreaks of violence starting that day in Urumqi, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), authorities executed nine men in November found guilty of committing crimes in July, according to a November 10 China Daily report and November 10 Xinhua report (via 163.com). The men executed, apparently 8 Uyghurs and 1 Han, were among 21 people sentenced on October 12 and October 15 for crimes including intentional homicide, arson, robbery, and property damage. Authorities sentenced 12 of the 21 men to death, but gave a two-year reprieve to 3 of them. The XUAR High People's Court reviewed all the verdicts, 15 of which had been appealed, and upheld the original judgments on October 30.