A high-profile Chinese government critic said he and 11 others were detained by police in a hotel yesterday to prevent them from attending the trial of an activist who investigated the deaths of schoolchildren in last year’s earthquake.
Avant-garde artist Ai Weiwei (艾未未) said police in the southwestern city of Chengdu also roughed up him and one of the other supporters who had traveled to the city to try to attend the trial of Tan Zuoren (譚作人), an activist charged with subversion.
The charges Tan faces appear to be linked to his quake investigation as well as essays he wrote about the 1989 student-led demonstrations in Tiananmen Square that ended in a deadly military crackdown. Beijing routinely uses the charge of subversion to imprison dissidents for years.
Tan, 55, denied all charges during yesterday’s trial at the Chengdu Intermediate Court, which concluded at midday after about three hours with no immediate ruling, his lawyer Pu Zhiqiang (蒲志強) said.
Following the 7.9-magnitude earthquake in Sichuan last year, Tan tried to investigate the collapse of school buildings in the quake and the number of schoolchildren killed, estimating at least 5,600 students were victims.
Critics allege that shoddy construction, enabled by corruption, caused several schools to collapse while buildings nearby remained intact — a politically sensitive theory that the government has tried to quash.
Tan’s wife and one of his daughters were allowed into the courtroom, although his brother and other daughter were not, Pu said.
Footage from Hong Kong Cable TV showed several police officers and vehicles stationed near the court in Chengdu.
The broadcaster said dozens of relatives of the quake victims gathered outside the court and wanted to go in to support Tan but were stopped by police.
Pu said that inside the courtroom, his requests to call on three witnesses, including the artist Ai, as well as to show video evidence were rejected.
Ai said he decided to try to go to the court to support Tan, but four police officers carrying guns and batons barged into his hotel room at 3am yesterday to take him away.
One of them struck him on his right cheek when he questioned them, he said, while another supporter was also roughed up.
“They said, ‘If we need, we can beat you to death,’” Ai said in a telephone interview from the hotel that police took him and the other supporters to, not far from the court.
About 20 officers guarded them, but did not give a reason for their detention, Ai said.
“It’s quite obvious that they just don’t want us to go to Tan Zuoren’s trial,” he said. “They’re showing less and less respect for the rights of citizens and for the rule of law.”
Calls to the Chengdu public security bureau rang unanswered.
Amnesty International urged the Chinese authorities to drop the cases against Tan and another earthquake activist Huang Qi (黃琦), who last week was tried for state secrets.
Seven people sustained mostly minor injuries in an airplane fire in South Korea, authorities said yesterday, with local media suggesting the blaze might have been caused by a portable battery stored in the overhead bin. The Air Busan plane, an Airbus A321, was set to fly to Hong Kong from Gimhae International Airport in southeastern Busan, but caught fire in the rear section on Tuesday night, the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport said. A total of 169 passengers and seven flight attendants and staff were evacuated down inflatable slides, it said. Authorities initially reported three injuries, but revised the number
A colossal explosion in the sky, unleashing energy hundreds of times greater than the Hiroshima bomb. A blinding flash nearly as bright as the sun. Shockwaves powerful enough to flatten everything for miles. It might sound apocalyptic, but a newly detected asteroid nearly the size of a football field now has a greater than 1 percent chance of colliding with Earth in about eight years. Such an impact has the potential for city-level devastation, depending on where it strikes. Scientists are not panicking yet, but they are watching closely. “At this point, it’s: ‘Let’s pay a lot of attention, let’s
‘BALD-FACED LIE’: The woman is accused of administering non-prescribed drugs to the one-year-old and filmed the toddler’s distress to solicit donations online A social media influencer accused of filming the torture of her baby to gain money allegedly manufactured symptoms causing the toddler to have brain surgery, a magistrate has heard. The 34-year-old Queensland woman is charged with torturing an infant and posting videos of the little girl online to build a social media following and solicit donations. A decision on her bail application in a Brisbane court was yesterday postponed after the magistrate opted to take more time before making a decision in an effort “not to be overwhelmed” by the nature of allegations “so offensive to right-thinking people.” The Sunshine Coast woman —
CHEER ON: Students were greeted by citizens who honked their car horns or offered them food and drinks, while taxi drivers said they would give marchers a lift home Hundreds of students protesting graft they blame for 15 deaths in a building collapse on Friday marched through Serbia to the northern city of Novi Sad, where they plan to block three Danube River bridges this weekend. They received a hero’s welcome from fellow students and thousands of local residents in Novi Said after arriving on foot in their two-day, 80km journey from Belgrade. A small red carpet was placed on one of the bridges across the Danube that the students crossed as they entered the city. The bridge blockade planned for yesterday is to mark three months since a huge concrete construction
RSS