倪玉兰 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
News for Monday 30 July is taken from The Guardian
A Chinese court has thrown out a fraud charge against a disabled lawyer in a small victory for the country’s battered rights movement, a day after the US pressed Beijing to improve its human rights record.
Ni Yulan, who has fought for the rights of people forced out of their homes to make way for development, will remain in prison to serve her other conviction for causing a disturbance.
The decision, announced by the Beijing First Intermediate People’s Court, means Ni, who uses a wheelchair, will have her prison time reduced by two months.
Ni and her husband, Dong Jiqin, were detained in April 2011 and later convicted of the charges. She was given a total of two years and eight months in jail.
Activists contend the charges were trumped up in an effort to silence the couple.
Prosecutors said previously Ni had swindled a person out of 5,000 yuan (£500) for “fabricating her identity as a lawyer”.
The court ruled that the contributions to Ni were donations, the couple’s lawyer, Cheng Hai, told Reuters by telephone.
“We’ve won partially,” Cheng said. “It wasn’t easy. But if everyone persists, there’s still hope. The path of the rule of law, no matter how tough it is, is still improving.”
The court did not answer telephone calls seeking comment.
Ni’s imprisonment underscores Chinese leaders’ increasing intolerance of dissent ahead of a tricky generational transition of power at the end of the year, when Xi Jinping, the vice-president, will almost certainly be anointed to take over from Hu Jintao.
On Thursday, the US urged China to address its “deteriorating” rights record, citing Ni’s case among others.
Cheng said Ni told the court she was not guilty in a five-minute speech. Ni, who had to be wheeled into the courtroom for her hearing last December on a stretcher and was hooked up to an oxygen tank, was able to sit upright for two and a half hours, Cheng said.
“In prison, she said the nutrition isn’t very good,” Cheng said. “She’s terribly malnourished.”
About a dozen diplomats gathered outside the courthouse to wait for the verdict, along with a heavy security presence.
Ni’s appeal comes a week after a Chinese court upheld a fine for tax evasion against the country’s most famous dissident, Ai Weiwei.
Prosecutors alleged that Ni and Dong had “willfully occupied” a room at a hotel, according to the court spokesman. Ni had previously called it a “black jail”, where they were forced to stay in 2010 after their home was demolished in 2008.
A black jail is an informal detention site, such as a hotel or government guesthouse, used to hold protesters and petitioners without resorting to legal procedures.
Ni was left disabled by a police beating in 2002 after filming the forced demolition of a client’s home, and was then imprisoned. Ni was again jailed and beaten by police in 2008 for defending the rights of people evicted from their homes to make way for Beijing’s 2008 Summer Olympics.
In February 2011, Jon Huntsman, then US ambassador to China, visited Ni in the hotel, where she said water and electricity had been cut off by the authorities.
Related articles
- US slams deteriorating human rights in China (thehimalayantimes.com)
- “New China Plan a Step Backward For Universal Rights Protection” (thechinahotline.wordpress.com)
- Chinese court upholds Ai Weiwei tax fine (independent.co.uk)
