A Chinese lawyer who specializes in helping Shanghai residents fight eviction from properties being developed as the city expands and modernizes has pleaded not guilty to revealing state secrets.
Zheng Enchong (鄭恩寵) appeared on Thursday before a closed-door trial charged with "illegally providing state secrets to entities outside of China," his wife, Jiang Meili, said.
The 53-year-old lawyer had helped families in more than 500 cases involving Shanghai urban development projects and also launched a suit against a firm run by Zhou Zhengyi (周正毅), a flamboyant snack-shop owner turned property tycoon who is now being investigated for corruption.
A Shanghai city official confirmed yesterday the hearing had taken place, but declined make any further comment when prompted. The hearing will resume in eight days.
It was not immediately clear what the state secrets were, but state secrets can cover a wide range of official information, and those found guilty of leaking classified material can face the death penalty.
"He entered a plea of not guilty and is confident of winning," Zheng's wife said.
Zheng's trial is the latest development in a scandal that surfaced after incensed residents accused Zhou of colluding with city officials and of getting a 43,000m2 plot of prime real estate.
Chinese newspapers have reported that Zhou is now under house arrest, but authorities have not confirmed his whereabouts or any detention.
Zhou has been dubbed Shanghai's wealthiest man and is believed to be China's 11th richest individual.
Zheng's trial has served as a rallying point for scores of disgruntled residents who have lost their homes as Shanghai develops.
On Thursday, hundreds of residents who tried to enter the city's Second Intermediate People's Court to attend Zheng's trial were stopped by police, witnesses said.
"The police took all of us into a nearby high school and jotted down our particulars before telling us to leave," one woman said by telephone.
US-based Human Rights in China condemned the trial.
"If justice is not seen to be done ... how will anyone else be willing to take a stand against corruption?" the group's president, Liu Qing, said in a statement.
Zheng's trial comes a week after the loss of a lawsuit launched against city authorities by a group of Shanghai residents who had been evicted from their homes.
The Shanghai Housing and Land Administration Bureau, responding to a growing number of complaints about its policies, says it will introduce new regulations to strive for greater transparency.
Zheng was originally detained on June 6 this year on accusations of stealing state secrets after assisting displaced families in more than 500 cases relating to Shanghai's urban redevelopment projects. His license was revoked in 2001.
‘UNUSUAL EVENT’: The Australian defense minister said that the Chinese navy task group was entitled to be where it was, but Australia would be watching it closely The Australian and New Zealand militaries were monitoring three Chinese warships moving unusually far south along Australia’s east coast on an unknown mission, officials said yesterday. The Australian government a week ago said that the warships had traveled through Southeast Asia and the Coral Sea, and were approaching northeast Australia. Australian Minister for Defence Richard Marles yesterday said that the Chinese ships — the Hengyang naval frigate, the Zunyi cruiser and the Weishanhu replenishment vessel — were “off the east coast of Australia.” Defense officials did not respond to a request for comment on a Financial Times report that the task group from
Asian perspectives of the US have shifted from a country once perceived as a force of “moral legitimacy” to something akin to “a landlord seeking rent,” Singaporean Minister for Defence Ng Eng Hen (黃永宏) said on the sidelines of an international security meeting. Ng said in a round-table discussion at the Munich Security Conference in Germany that assumptions undertaken in the years after the end of World War II have fundamentally changed. One example is that from the time of former US president John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address more than 60 years ago, the image of the US was of a country
DEFENSE UPHEAVAL: Trump was also to remove the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the judge advocates general for the army, navy and air force US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer. The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service,
BLIND COST CUTTING: A DOGE push to lay off 2,000 energy department workers resulted in hundreds of staff at a nuclear security agency being fired — then ‘unfired’ US President Donald Trump’s administration has halted the firings of hundreds of federal employees who were tasked with working on the nation’s nuclear weapons programs, in an about-face that has left workers confused and experts cautioning that the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE’s) blind cost cutting would put communities at risk. Three US officials who spoke to The Associated Press said up to 350 employees at the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) were abruptly laid off late on Thursday, with some losing access to e-mail before they’d learned they were fired, only to try to enter their offices on Friday morning
RSS