Chinese prosecutors cited a poem and messages sent on Skype against a dissident who stood trial on Tuesday, his son and his lawyer said, in the latest case highlighting the Communist Party’s drive to silence political challengers.
Veteran activist Zhu Yufu faced trial in the prosperous eastern city of Hangzhou, where police arrested him in April and charged him with “inciting subversion of state power,” his lawyer, Li Dunyong, said.
The court did not deliver its verdict straight away. But Zhu, who turns 59 in February, appears likely to follow other Chinese dissidents who have received stiff prison terms from the party-run judiciary on subversion charges, which are often used to punish ardent advocates of democratic change.
In Zhu’s case, the prosecutors cited his poem, “It’s time,” as well as text messages that he sent using the Skype online chat service, said Li.
There was no suggestion that Skype helped police to collect evidence, he told Reuters by telephone.
“They took his computer away from his home and went through it,” he said of the Hangzhou police.
“His Internet contacts and password were saved on it, with automatic access, and when the police accessed it they could open the records of text messages saved on Skype. He had not erased the records.”
Skype’s online telephone and messaging service has become popular among Chinese activists as a cheap and relatively secure way to communicate.
Zhu’s wife, Jiang Hangli, told Reuters that she feared that he could join other dissidents recently given prison terms of nine years and longer for subversion. Chinese courts rarely find in favor of defendants.
“I hope he won’t face trouble, but that’s a wish. I don’t think that they’ll let him off lightly,” Jiang said in a telephone interview before the trial.
China’s Communist leaders are steeling for a leadership handover late this year, and their long-standing determination to stifle political challenges is likely to deepen. The government is also trying to quell flare-ups of protest in Tibetan areas in the country’s west.
Beijing has rejected criticism that Chinese human rights conditions have worsened, especially since 2010, when authorities cracked down out of fear that anti-authoritarian upheavals across the Arab world could trigger unrest in China.
