A HUMAN-RIGHTS lawyer and three activists have been found guilty of “subverting state power” in a series of trials in the northern city of Tianjin. With resonances of the show trials of China’s Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, they are the latest part of a crackdown on Western ideas and social and political activism that began in earnest after Xi Jinping became Communist Party chief in 2012.
The past year has been particularly intense for lawyers and activists, starting last July when 250 of them were detained by police. The four convicted between August 2nd and 5th were accused of being part of a foreign-backed, anti-party conspiracy and confessed their “crimes” in video footage.
Yet the crackdown on rights lawyers and political activists is not the whole story. It comes as incremental judicial reforms are taking place for less sensitive cases at a local level which mean that some citizens are making modest progress seeking redress through the courts. These two contradictory dynamics—old-style, top-down political pressure alongside some bottom-up legal empowerment—are part of the party’s carrot-and-stick approach to...Continue reading
Source: China http://ift.tt/2aE5DSI
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