2015-07-22
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Tang Jingling, a top human rights lawyer in Guangzhou, and his wife Wang Yanfang in an undated photo.
(Photo courtesy of Wang Yanfang.)
Authorities in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong have placed a number of rights activists under surveillance, issuing warnings not to try to attend the continued subversion trial of the “Guangzhou Three” activists later this week, activists and lawyers said on Wednesday.
Rights lawyer Tang Jingling, former teacher Wang Qingying, and writer-activist Yuan Xinting, known as the Guangzhou Three, initially stood trial on June 19 at the Guangzhou Intermediate People’s Court for “incitement to subvert state power” after being held in a police detention center for more than a year.
But court officials called off the trial after the three men dismissed their defense team amid a procedural dispute with court officials, who refused to let them call witnesses.
The trial will resume at the same court on Thursday and Friday, lawyers told RFA.
Since then, Wang Qingying’s former defense attorney Sui Muqing has himself been detained in a nationwide crackdown on rights lawyers, and is himself facing charges of “incitement to subvert state power.”
Fellow defense team members Zhang Xuezhong and Liu Zhangqing have also been summoned for questioning by local police, according to Guangzhou-based rights activist Jia Pin, who said any potential supporters of the Guangzhou Three are also being targeted by the authorities.
“I was sent outside the province more than a week ago by Guangzhou police, and I just got off the train from Hunan in Guangzhou today, and I am planning to go to attend the trial tomorrow,” Jia said.
“A lot of our Guangzhou friends have been sent on forced vacations, and some have been kicked out of the city, including Li Weiguo and Liao Jianhao,” he said.
Friends warned off trial
He said friends and supporters of the Guangzhou Three living elsewhere in China had also been warned off trying to attend the trial.
“There are some friends outside the province who have received clear warnings, such as He Jiawei in Hunan … not to try to travel to support Tang Jingling and the others, nor to try to attend the trial in Guangzhou,” Jia said.
Guangzhou-based author Xu Lin said he has been under surveillance by police in his hometown of Changsha since he made a trip to Guangzhou to visit relatives a few days ago.
“Since I got back, they have sent people to keep watch at the door to my building,” Xu told RFA. “Yesterday, they sent two people who followed me around all day long.”
“They are afraid that people will try to attend the trial of Tang Jingling and the others,” he said.
The Guangzhou Three trial is highly politically sensitive for the ruling Chinese Communist Party, and security has been tight in the run-up to the continued trial hearing, Jia said.
