{"id":47188,"date":"2015-05-19T23:18:00","date_gmt":"2015-05-19T23:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1:10081\/?p=47188 "},"modified":"2015-05-19T23:18:00","modified_gmt":"2015-05-19T23:18:00","slug":"47188-revision-v1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/?p=47188","title":{"rendered":"China Releases Rights Lawyer, Pu Zhiqiang\\&#8217;s Niece, \\&#8217;On Bail\\&#8217;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>2015-05-19<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mzzg.org\/UploadCenter\/ArticlePics\/2015\/20\/2015519image(1).jpg\" alt=\"2015519image(1).jpg (600&#215;400)\" \/><br \/><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>Pu Zhiqiang (front right) attends a seminar about the Tiananmen crackdown in Beijing, May 3, 2014.<\/div><div>Photo courtesy of CHRD<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>Authorities in the Chinese capital have released Qu Zhenhong, niece and former defense attorney of jailed rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang, on &#8220;bail,&#8221; her lawyers said.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>Qu was initially held in May 2014 under criminal detention on suspicion of &#8220;illegally gathering citizens&#8217; information,&#8221; after she agreed to represent Pu, who was indicted for &#8220;incitement to racial hatred&#8221; and &#8220;picking quarrels and stirring up trouble&#8221; last week.<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div>While Pu&#8217;s case now looks set to proceed to trial, Qu has been released on &#8220;bail,&#8221; defense attorney Mo Shaoping told RFA on Tuesday.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&#8220;From Qu Zhenhong&#8217;s point of view, she is currently only released on bail, but the case against her hasn&#8217;t been dropped,&#8221; Mo said.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&#8220;The prosecution service won&#8217;t stop investigating her during her bail period, and if they still think the charge against her will stand up, they could indict her and take it to court,&#8221; he said.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>Fellow defense attorney Shang Baojun, who is also defending Pu, welcomed Qu&#8217;s release, however.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&#8220;However you look at it, we welcome Qu Zhenhong&#8217;s release on bail,&#8221; Shang said. &#8220;Especially from Pu Zhiqiang&#8217;s point of view, as she is his niece.&#8221;<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&#8220;The fact that Qu Zhenhong is no longer in a horrible jail cell will be a great source of psychological comfort to him,&#8221; he said. &#8220;From that point of view, it will be good for Pu&#8217;s case.&#8221;<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>However, a congratulatory tweet sent by fellow rights lawyer Ge Yongxi was deleted from the Twitter-like platform Sina Weibo soon after it was posted on Monday.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>Beijing-based lawyer Liu Xiaoyuan said Qu has been released on a technicality, because the same charge had been dropped against Pu, with whom she was to have shared a trial.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&#8220;Now that the procuratorate isn&#8217;t charging Pu Zhiqiang with this crime, they won&#8217;t charge Qu Zhenhong either,&#8221; Liu said.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&#8220;I&#8217;m sure it&#8217;s because they don&#8217;t have any evidence, or not enough evidence &#8230; a serious lack of evidence that is insufficient to charge her with,&#8221; he added.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>However, Qu&#8217;s release apparently doesn&#8217;t signal a more tolerant era for China&#8217;s embattled legal profession, particularly for those who help disadvantaged groups stand up for their rights in the face of<\/div><div>state power.<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>Qu&#8217;s release came as a lawyer representing the mother of Xu Chunhe, a 45-year-old man shot dead by police at a railway station in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, lay in hospital with a broken leg after being beaten by an unidentified &#8220;mob.&#8221;<\/div><div><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><\/div><div><a href=\"http:\/\/www.rfa.org\/english\/news\/china\/china-lawyer-05192015133049.html\">For detail please visit here<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&lt;div&gt;Qu was initially held in May 2014 under criminal detention on suspicion of &quot;illegally gathering citizens&#39; information,&quot; after she agreed to represent Pu, who was indicted for &quot;incitement to racial hatred&quot; and &quot;picking quarrels and stirring up trouble&quot; last week.&lt;\/div&gt;&lt;div&gt;&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-47188","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\/47188","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=47188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47188\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}