{"id":43147,"date":"2014-10-27T13:53:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-27T13:53:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1:10081\/?p=43147 "},"modified":"2014-10-27T13:53:00","modified_gmt":"2014-10-27T13:53:00","slug":"43147-revision-v1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/?p=43147","title":{"rendered":"Chinese filmmaker to stand trial for constitution documentary"},"content":{"rendered":"
BEIJING Mon Oct 27, 2014 1:56am EDT<\/div>
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(Reuters) – A filmmaker who made a documentary on China’s constitutional governance will stand trial on charges of “illegal business activity”, raising questions about Beijing’s promise to uphold the rule of law in accordance with the constitution.<\/div>
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Shen Yongping will be the first person prosecuted for documenting China’s constitutional history in a film called “100 years of constitutional governance”, his lawyer, Zhang Xuezhong, told Reuters in a telephone interview on Monday.<\/div>
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The trial comes at a time of increased optimism among some Chinese scholars about Beijing’s willingness to enforce the supervision of China’s Constitution, which guarantees freedom of expression.<\/div>
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But Shen’s detention and other arrests have eroded some of that optimism. Chinese intellectuals and international rights groups have denounced President Xi Jinping’s administration for the worst suppression of human rights in years.<\/div>
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The film is about “the Chinese people’s pursuit of constitutionalism from the time of the Qing dynasty till the present day, and their failed experiences,” Zhang said, adding that he will argue the eight-episode documentary is not illegal.<\/div>
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The 33-year-old Shen has been held at Beijing’s Chaoyang District Detention Centre since late April, Zhang said.<\/div>
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Police had warned Shen during the filming that if he persisted in making the documentary, he would “definitely go to prison”, according to Zhang.<\/div>
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Police in Beijing were not immediately available for comment.<\/div>
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Shen will be tried on Nov. 4 in a court in Beijing, Zhang said. If convicted of engaging in “illegal business activity”, he could be sentenced to five years or more in prison.<\/div>
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The documentary “does not constitute a crime” because Shen never engaged in any business or made any profit from his film, Zhang said, adding that Shen will plead not guilty.<\/div>
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“This accusation is extremely absurd. ‘Illegal business activity’ has now become another tactic for them to conduct their political suppression,” Zhang said.<\/div>
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Continue reading the original article<\/a>.<\/div>
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<div>The film is about "the Chinese people's pursuit of constitutionalism from the time of the Qing dynasty till the present day, and their failed experiences," Zhang said, adding that he will argue the eight-episode documentary is not illegal.<\/div><\/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-43147","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\/43147","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=43147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43147\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}