JULY 7, 2014 4:23 AMJuly 7, 2014 11:45 pm
A meeting on May 3 in Beijing to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen democracy movement led to the detentions of several participants and criminal charges against a prominent lawyer, Pu Zhiqiang, in events widely reported abroad and spoken of, quietly, in China.
The lawyer Chang Boyang, speaking to clients he represented in China’s poisoned milk powder scandal, in Zhengzhou, September 2008.Credit Courtesy of Lu Jun
But another commemorative meeting, earlier in the year on Feb. 2, perhaps less closely followed, also led to the detentions of about 10 people and formal charges, including against one person who did not even take part — the public interest lawyer Chang Boyang, according to fellow lawyers and Mr. Chang’s nongovernmental organization, Zhengzhou Yirenping. Mr. Chang is a co-founder of the group, which works to prevent discrimination against people with hepatitis.
On Saturday, Mr. Chang’s family was informed of his official arrest on July 3 on “suspicion of illegal commercial activities” — a switch in charges that baffled his lawyer, Liu Weiguo, according to a statement put out by Zhengzhou Yirenping.
