Chengdu Court Postpones Trial of Activist Huang Qi

March 12, 2009

The Wuhou District People's Court in Chengdu, Sichuan province, postponed the trial of rights activist Huang Qi after initially notifying Huang's wife and his lawyer on February 2, 2009, that the trial would be held the next day, according to February 2 articles in the Washington Post (WP) and Associated Press (AP, via WTOP.com).

The Wuhou District People's Court in Chengdu, Sichuan province, postponed the trial of rights activist Huang Qi after initially notifying Huang's wife and his lawyer on February 2, 2009, that the trial would be held the next day, according to February 2 articles in the Washington Post (WP) and Associated Press (AP, via WTOP.com). Huang's wife, Zeng Li, said the court called her twice on February 2, first informing her of the trial date on the next day, and later telling her the date had been postponed and that she would receive three days' notice before the trial. No new date has been announced. Huang, founder of the rights advocacy Web site, 64tianwang.com, has been detained since June 2008 on charges of illegally possessing state secrets. Prior to his detention, Huang had traveled to areas affected by the May 2008 Sichuan earthquake and posted articles on his Web site about demands by parents for compensation and an investigation into school collapses that killed thousands of children.

The court's original one-day notice would have violated Chinese law had it been carried out. Article 151(4) of the Criminal Procedure Law (CPL) requires the court to notify the defendant's counsel and representatives no later than three days before the opening of the court session. Furthermore, Article 151(2) requires the court to deliver the indictment to the defendant no later than 10 days before the opening of a court session. One of Huang's lawyers, Mo Shaoping, called the one-day notice "a totally illegal process," according to the AP article. According to Mo, the judge blamed the short notice on difficulties reaching Huang's lawyer and family. Mo and Zeng told AP that their addresses and phone numbers were contained in court documents. Moreover, Zeng said she had been trying to reach the court for weeks to no avail. Prosecutors and court officials told WP they were not permitted to speak to foreign media, and the AP's calls to the court on February 2 went unanswered.

The underlying activity giving rise to the state secrets charge is unclear. Mo told Agence France-Presse (AFP) last September that authorities had questioned Huang about interviews he conducted while visiting areas affected by the Sichuan earthquake, according to a September 24 AFP article. "They also asked him about issues regarding his charge of illegally possessing state secrets," Mo told AFP. Mo was not able to disclose further information about the state secret Huang is alleged to have possessed. The Chinese government takes a broad interpretation of what constitutes a state secret that potentially includes essentially any matter of public concern. "There's an expansive definition of state secrets, and the problem is it cannot be challenged, and very often the courts don't see the documents that are allegedly state secrets," Nicholas Bequelin, a China researcher for Human Rights Watch, told the New York Times in a February 2 article about Huang's case. "There's no mechanism under Chinese law to challenge something that the prosecution says is a state secret. So basically, if you're charged with state secrets, it's unlikely you can shake the charges," Bequelin said. Furthermore, by alleging that a defendant's case involves state secrets, authorities may deny the defendant access to a lawyer. In a March 10, 2006, report (searchable by date on the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Web site) based on visits to China, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment noted that China's vaguely defined crimes of endangering state security, splittism, subverting state power, and supplying state secrets left "their application open to abuse particularly of the rights to freedom of religion, speech, and assembly," and recommended the abolition of such "political crimes."

Plainclothes police took Huang into custody on June 10, 2008. Chengdu public security officials formally arrested him on July 18 on the state secrets charge. Under Article 96 of the CPL, lawyers in state secrets cases must obtain the approval of investigating authorities before meeting with a client. Mo was not able to meet with Huang until September 23, according to the September 24 AFP article. Huang's lawyers have criticized their lack of access to the police's evidence and case files, according to the AFP article and a November 12 Radio Free Asia (RFA) article (in Chinese). According to the RFA article and a November 14 Voice of America (VOA) article (in Chinese), prosecutors have returned the case to police for supplementary investigation on two occasions, the second occurring in November. VOA quoted one of Huang's lawyers as saying the supplementary investigations indicated that the state's evidence was insufficient.

Huang previously served a five-year sentence from 2000 to 2005 for "inciting subversion of state power." The court in that case cited articles Huang posted on his Web site dealing with topics such as "democracy," "June 4," and "Falun Gong."

For more information on Huang's case, please see his record of detention, searchable through the Congressional-Executive Commission on China's Political Prisoner Database.