{"id":24433,"date":"2011-12-28T12:01:00","date_gmt":"2011-12-28T12:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1:10081\/?p=24433 "},"modified":"2011-12-28T12:01:00","modified_gmt":"2011-12-28T12:01:00","slug":"24433-revision-v1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/?p=24433","title":{"rendered":"Chinese Couple to Go on Trial for Defending Land Rights"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><p><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">Mainland rights activist Ni Yulan and her husband will go on trial this week after representing victims of land grabs, as China cracks down on political dissent.<\/span><\/p><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><div><\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">Ni and Dong Jiqin were detained in April as authorities rounded up scores of rights defenders and activists amid anonymous internet calls for protests in China similar to those that have swept the Arab world.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">The couple will appear in court in Beijing tomorrow on charges of &#8220;inciting a disturbance,&#8221; their daughter, Dong Xuan, said.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">They will plead not guilty, she added.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">&#8220;The police have not allowed me to see my parents since they were detained more than eight months ago,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Our lawyer saw my mother last week and said she was not in good health.&#8221;<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">The couple have provided legal assistance to numerous families who have been forcibly evicted from their homes in government-backed land requisitions.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><div><\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">Their battle to oppose the land grabs began in 2001 after their courtyard home in central Beijing was requisitioned and marked for demolition.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">Trained as a lawyer, Ni, 51, was sentenced to a year in jail in 2002 for &#8220;obstructing official business&#8221; and for two years in 2008 for &#8220;harming public property&#8221; &#8211; charges brought against her as she tried to protect her home.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">She was also disbarred from legal practice in 2002.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">The couple said they have not been compensated for the loss of their home.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">A Hong Kong-based group, Chinese Human Rights Defenders, said Ni was left disabled after being beaten by police in 2002 and suffers from severe health problems.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><div><\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">She is unable to stand and is also suffering from swollen lymph nodes, and cannot afford medical treatment, the group added.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">The trial comes after a court in southwest Guizhou province this week sentenced veteran activist Chen Xi for 10 years for subversion.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">Another longtime dissident, Chen Wei, was jailed for nine years in Sichuan, also for subversion.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><span style=\"color: #2d2d2d; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Lucida Grande', 'Segoe UI', Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; text-align: -webkit-left; background-color: #ffffff; font-size: 12pt; \">Read&nbsp;<\/span><strong style=\"color: #2d2d2d; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Lucida Grande', 'Segoe UI', Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: -webkit-left; background-color: #ffffff; \"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thestandard.com.hk\/news_detail.asp?we_cat=11&amp;art_id=118300&amp;sid=34907242&amp;con_type=1&amp;d_str=20111228&amp;fc=2\" style=\"text-decoration: none; color: #034af3; \"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">original article<\/span><\/a><\/span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">.<\/span><\/strong><span style=\"color: #2d2d2d; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Lucida Grande', 'Segoe UI', Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: -webkit-left; background-color: #ffffff; \">&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/span>&nbsp;<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><p>&nbsp;<\/p><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&lt;div&gt;Ni Yulan and husband Dong Jiqin are the latest targets in the sweeping crackdown on human rights defenders in China. &amp;nbsp;The couple have been in jail since April for attempting to assist victims of land seizures.&lt;\/div&gt;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ChinaHumanRights","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=24433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24433\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}