{"id":168520,"date":"2014-02-04T01:09:05","date_gmt":"2014-02-04T09:09:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=168520"},"modified":"2014-02-18T13:34:55","modified_gmt":"2014-02-18T21:34:55","slug":"anxiety-trumps-law-partys-crackdown-activists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2014\/02\/anxiety-trumps-law-partys-crackdown-activists\/","title":{"rendered":"Anxiety Trumps Law in Party\u2019s Crackdown on Activists"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>At China Real Time, Stanley Lubman comments that <a href=\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2014\/01\/xu-zhiyong\/\">the recent trials of Xu Zhiyong<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2014\/01\/two-new-citizen-activists-convicted-xu-appeal\/\">other New Citizens&#8217; Movement activists<\/a> show how <a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.wsj.com\/chinarealtime\/2014\/02\/04\/anxiety-trumps-law-in-partys-crackdown-on-activists\/\"><strong>the Party &#8220;continues to twist the use of the criminal law and procedure to meet the perceived needs of the moment.&#8221;<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The Beijing First Intermediate People\u2019s Court\u2019s decision to sentence activist Xu Zhiyong to four years in prison for \u201cdisturbing public order\u201d by encouraging demonstrations against official corruption by his supporters in the New Citizens Movement surprises no one. The heavy-handed violations of Chinese criminal procedure law that marked the case, both before and during the trial, were part and parcel of the departures from Chinese law that have often marked prosecutions of activists protesting official illegality. Defense lawyers were barred from cross-examining prosecution witnesses and from calling witnesses of their own. The authorities also violated Chinese law by holding separate trials, which prevented the defendants from providing testimony that could be useful to one another\u2019s defense.\u00a0 The instrumental manipulation of procedure is depressingly familiar.<\/p>\n<p>[\u2026] The crackdown on Xu and other social activists illustrates one of the most serious aspects of the current state of Chinese criminal procedure:\u00a0 The primacy of the Party in the criminal process is shown in full force when it is brought to bear on activists for allegedly violating public order, disclosing state secrets and other offenses against the security of the Party-State.\u00a0 This means that Party policy continues to shape the conduct and outcomes of criminal cases, with disregard for procedural justice.\u00a0 The Party\u2019s rhetorical\u00a0 support of the rule of law \u2014 often extolled in Party statements\u2014 is consistently and glaringly violated in practice. [<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.wsj.com\/chinarealtime\/2014\/02\/04\/anxiety-trumps-law-in-partys-crackdown-on-activists\/\">Source<\/a><\/strong>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At China Real Time, Stanley Lubman comments that the recent trials of Xu Zhiyong and other New Citizens&#8217; Movement activists show how the Party &#8220;continues to twist the use of the criminal law and procedure to meet the perceived needs of the moment.&#8221; The Beijing First Intermediate People\u2019s Court\u2019s decision to sentence activist Xu Zhiyong [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":962,"featured_media":168522,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[34,10,14744,14745,14746,100,5],"tags":[11817,3041,16126,2206,757,8159,3604,16462],"class_list":["post-168520","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-human-rights","category-law","category-level-2-article","category-level-3-article","category-level-4-article","category-politics","category-society","tag-criminal-law","tag-legal-system","tag-new-citizens-movement","tag-rule-by-law","tag-rule-of-law","tag-trials","tag-xu-zhiyong","tag-xu-zhiyong-trial-2014","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v23.9 (Yoast SEO 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