China rights activists on trial amid crackdown

A closely-watched trial of three Chinese rights activists resumed on Thursday in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, amid an unprecedented crackdown by authorities on human rights lawyers across the country.

Scores of police blocked off the area around Guangzhou's intermediate People's Court, and foreign journalists and a small group of Western diplomats were barred from the courtroom.

Several supporters of the defendants — Tang Jingling, Wang Qingying and Yuan Xinting — were taken away by police according to witnesses and diplomats on the scene.

Well over 200 people have been detained or questioned since the crackdown began in July, according to the Hong Kong-based China Human Rights Lawyer Concern Group.

Tang, 44, a prominent human rights lawyer, was arrested last summer and now faces a charge of "inciting subversion of state power." It carries a maximum sentence of 15 years.

The men distributed books such as Gene Sharp's "From Dictatorship to Democracy" and "Self-Liberation," police said. They also accused Tang of "instigating others to participate in the non-violent 'Citizen Non-cooperation Movement'."

The trio were known as the "three gentlemen of Guangzhou," part of a once-vibrant community of activists whom authorities have targeted in the southern Chinese city in recent years. Another Guangzhou rights leader, Guo Feixiong, has been detained for over a year and faces prosecution for his work.

State media reported that China's Ministry of Public Security had called Beijing Fengrui Law Firm — a prominent practice with leading human rights lawyers — a "major criminal gang" that has engaged in "disturbing social order." 

“The massive rounding up of frontline legal advocates whose roles are to protect rights exposes the government’s ‘rule-by-law’ policy for what it is: a weapon for repression,” said Sharon Hom, director of the international advocacy group Human Rights in China. “It also seriously undermines China’s international credibility and domestic legitimacy.”

The U.S. government said in a statement that it was "deeply concerned" at what appeared to be a systematic pattern of arrests and detentions of rights defenders who "peacefully challenge official Chinese policies and actions."

Legal proceedings were suspended last month when the three activists dismissed their lawyers after the court rejected requests to call witnesses and to keep Communist Party members off the bench.

One of the lawyers for the activists, Sui Muqing, has since been detained in the ongoing crackdown.

Tang's wife and another defense lawyer weren't immediately reachable on their mobile phones for comment.

Al Jazeera and Reuters