A student leader of China’s 1989 pro-democracy movement who has long lived in the US went on trial in China yesterday, a day after US President Barack Obama finished a visit that raised human rights.
Zhou Yongjun (周勇軍) faced fraud charges at the trial in Shehong County in southwest Sichuan Province, his long-time girlfriend and a friend at the courthouse told reporters.
Zhou was a leader of the Beijing Students’ Autonomous Union in the 1989 protests that ended in a bloody army-led crackdown in the streets around Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. He later obtained a green card from the US, giving him residential rights, but not full citizenship.
“I know from the lawyers that he’s on trial today, but the whole process has been kept secret. This came out of the blue,” Zhang Yuewei (張月衛), Zhou’s girlfriend, said from Los Angeles, where she lives. She said Zhou’s immediate family had also told her of the trial.
“Holding the trial at this time was to show the US President,” Zhang said in a separate e-mail. “The Chinese government maybe believes that it has the power and cash to go up against the United States and international society.”
A friend of Zhou’s said she was refused entry to the courthouse, which appeared to be crowded with officials.
“They don’t want any publicity about this case,” said the friend, who gave her surname as Lei, but asked that her full name not be reported.
Because Zhou is not a US citizen, Washington has scant formal power to intervene, and Chinese authorities have no obligations to tell the US of any developments.
In his public comments throughout his four-day visit to China, Obama raised general hopes for broader human rights in China, but avoided raising specific cases. It was unclear, however, whether he raised such cases in his closed-door meetings with China’s leaders.
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