Trial of China rights lawyer ends after one day

US, EU officials jostled in scrum outside courtroom.

Beijing:  China has started the trial of prominent rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang after he posted messages on social media criticizing the Communist Party, including policies on Buddhist monasteries in Tibet and a ban on Muslim veils.

In rowdy scenes outside the Beijing courtroom on Dec. 14, police shoved and grabbed Chinese protesters, foreign journalists and diplomats including U.S. Embassy official Dan Biers as he tried to make a speech defending Pu.

"[Pu] should not be subject to continuing repression but should be allowed to contribute to the building of a…," Biers said before being drowned out and bundled away by bellowing Chinese police officers.

A European Union official was similarly harassed while trying to make a speech outside the courthouse, and journalists from global agencies including the BBC and the Wall Street Journal reported being manhandled by security officials.

"This effort to deter news coverage is a gross violation of Chinese government rules governing foreign correspondents," the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China said in a statement.

About 40 Chinese stood outside as the trial proceeded behind a police cordon, holding up signs reading "Pu Zhiqiang: innocent."

He reportedly did not offer a plea and it remains unclear when the court will issue a verdict.

Pu, 50, was detained in May last year after attending a gathering to commemorate the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre.

He faces up to eight years in prison for "picking quarrels and provoking trouble" and "inciting ethnic hatred" after the prosecution last week detailed the exact source of the charges: seven messages on Weibo, China's equivalent of Twitter.

One posting criticizes a Beijing policy that Tibetan Buddhist temples must hang portraits of China's four previous communist leaders: Hu Jintao, Jiang Zemin, Deng Xiaoping and Chairman Mao respectively. It continues by questioning a policy banning Muslim veils and long beards in Yining, a city in restive Xinjiang province, which is home to 12 million minority Uighurs and other Islamic groups.

In one post, Pu suggests the attack on Kunming train station that left 33 dead including four Uighur assailants last March was a symptom of repressive Beijing policies in Xinjiang.

An outspoken lawyer, Pu has defended a string of sensitive figures in China including celebrity artist Ai Wei Wei. A year after his detention, Chinese authorities began a major crackdown that led to the arrest of at least 230 lawyers across the country, some of whom are still missing.

Source: UCAN