Published: December 6, 2013
HONG KONG — The police in Beijing have recommended that one of China’s most prominent human rights advocates, Xu Zhiyong, be tried for his role in organizing demonstrations demanding that the Communist Party disclose officials’ wealth and provide equal educational opportunities, his lawyer and a friend said Friday.
The recommendation from investigators in Beijing brought Mr. Xu one step closer to a trial, but prosecutors must still decide whether to indict him, his lawyer, Zhang Qingfang, said in a telephone interview.
“Legally speaking, this means that the public security office believes that Xu Zhiyong’s actions constituted a crime,” Mr. Zhang said.
Teng Biao, a friend of Mr. Xu’s, said in a telephone interview: “The prosecutors can choose to indict, demand further investigation or reject the charges. Indictment is most likely, I’m afraid.”
Mr. Teng said another of Mr. Xu’s lawyer told him about the police decision.
Mr. Zhang said Mr. Xu maintained his innocence.
“Mr. Xu has always been adamant that he never committed any crimes, that he was acting entirely within the bounds of his lawful rights,” Mr. Zhang said.
The accusations show that the government has targeted Mr. Xu for his leading role in a citizens’ rights movement, which since last year has gained a public following with its demands for greater political freedom and disclosure of officials’ assets as a way to fight corruption. The movement has also protested China’s education system, which prevents students from rural areas from sharing the same resources and opportunities as those in big cities.
Mr. Zhang said the criminal charge against Mr. Xu was “assembling a crowd to disrupt order in a public place, the one he was arrested for.”
“The public security claimed that he organized people to assemble and demand disclosure of officials’ wealth and equal educational rights, disturbing the public order,” he said.
The police also accuse Mr. Xu of helping to arrange banners and other paraphernalia for the small, usually brief protests in Beijing and elsewhere, Mr. Teng said.
The Communist Party closely controls Chinese prosecutors and judges, especially in politically delicate cases, and Mr. Xu appears unlikely to escape trial and a prison sentence.
The police detained Mr. Xu in July, after he had already spent more than three months under informal house arrest in his apartment. Several other supporters of the citizens’ movement and parallel rights campaigns have been arrested, including a wealthy investor, Wang Gongquan, and a veteran dissident, Yang Maodong. This week, a court in eastern China tried three other participants in the movement.
Mr. Xu, 40, has been prominent in China’s network of rights advocates since 2003, when he took up the case of Sun Zhigang, a young clothing designer who was fatally beaten in a detention center for people lacking the right residency documents. The resulting outcry led the government to abolish arbitrary detention in such centers.
Mr. Xu studied law, but government authorities have refused to give him a license to practice.
Mr. Zhang, his lawyer, said prosecutors might spend a month to six months or more considering the case. He said his most recent visit to Mr. Xu was in late November. “He’s doing O.K.,” Mr. Zhang said. “He is very firm that he will defend himself as innocent.”
An earlier version of this article misattributed a quotation. It was Teng Biao, a friend of Xu Zhiyong’s, who said: “The prosecutors can choose to indict, demand further investigation or reject the charges. Indictment is most likely, I’m afraid.” It was not Zhang Qingfang, a lawyer for Mr. Xu.
