Chinese authorities held the trials behind closed doors this week against Yu Wensheng, a well-known human rights lawyer, and his wife, Xu Yan, who they accuse of “inciting subversion”. Both were arrested in April 2023 on their way to a meeting at the European Union delegation in Beijing, where they were due to take part in a meeting between European officials and Chinese civil society. Yu’s court hearing took place on Wednesday at the intermediate people’s court in Suzhou, a city very close to Shanghai; Xu’s was held this Friday at the same place. Diplomats from a dozen Western countries (Spain is not among them) who had travelled to attend the trial were not allowed into either court. The EU’s European External Action Service, which filed a formal complaint with Beijing after the arrests, has again called for their “immediate release”. The trial comes as Chung Pui-kuen and Patrick Lam, two journalists who ran a pro-democracy newspaper in the Chinese special administrative region, were found guilty of sedition on Thursday. It is the first sedition case against journalists in Hong Kong since Britain handed the territory back to China in 1997.
Lawyer Yu Wensheng and his wife, Xu Yan, are on trial for “inciting subversion of the State,” a crime that can carry sentences of up to five years, although in the case of lawyer Yu it could be more severe for repeat offences. The arrested men had been invited by the EU to a meeting with a European delegation visiting Beijing. The meeting had been set on the margins of an official trip by the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, which was finally suspended when he tested positive for Covid. Even so, it was decided to hold the meeting with the group of lawyers and human rights activists, all of whom are linked to a very harsh raid carried out in China in 2015, in which more than 300 lawyers were arrested.
Xu received the verdict on Friday: she has been sentenced to one year and nine months in prison, so she should be released in four months, according to a European diplomatic source closely following the case.
In Yu’s indictment, which EL PAÍS has had access to, the prosecution argues that he was influenced by “anti-Chinese forces” and gradually formed the idea of subverting state power and overthrowing the socialist system. He is accused of comments posted on the social network X (then called Twitter), which is illegal in China, and of publicly calling for constitutional changes.
Ge Wenxiu, one of Yu’s lawyers, states in his defense brief, to which EL PAÍS has had access, that his client is being tried for the same facts for which he was already convicted in the past: demanding those amendments to the Chinese constitution. For that reason, the lawyer demands the application of the principle of non bis in idem (you cannot be convicted twice for the same acts), and turns his text into a fiery speech in defense of freedom of expression. “It is the most important of all freedoms, and it is the prerequisite for all other freedoms,” he writes. “There have been too many periods and tragedies in China’s history when people were condemned for their words,” he adds before recalling the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), when millions of people were persecuted for their ideas.
Yaxue Cao, a Washington-based human rights activist, says the case against Yu and Xu shows how much the Chinese government is irritated by visits by activists and lawyers to Western embassies. She calls the allegations “ridiculous” and says the case is part of a long-standing strategy by Beijing to crack down on the human rights lawyers’ movement that began to take shape around 2004. “The government thinks they are dangerous because they are the connector to other groups” in civil society, she says over the phone. Yaxue, who is also the editor of Chinachange.org, is currently preparing a book about the 2015 raid on hundreds of lawyers.
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Nabila Massrali, spokesperson for the EU’s European External Action Service, regretted on Wednesday that European diplomats had not been allowed access to the trial. “This denial undermines confidence in procedural guarantees in China,” she said on X. “The EU reiterates its previous concern for the well-being of Yu Wensheng and Xu Yan and calls for their immediate release.”
Yu Wensheng is a prominent human rights lawyer who is highly critical of President Xi Jinping. When he was arrested, he had just completed a year of freedom after being sentenced to four years in prison and an additional three years of deprivation of political rights, also for “inciting subversion of state power.” Yu was arrested in 2018 after publishing an open letter calling for democratic reforms to the country’s constitution. He had previously been arrested in 2014 for his involvement in the Occupy Hong Kong democracy movement.
“I don’t regret what I’ve done,” Yu told EL PAÍS in an interview in October 2022, while his wife, Xu Yan, served tea at home. He had deep dark circles under his eyes and was persistently touching his arm, which had been sore since his arrests in 2014. He said that he rarely left the house, and spent much of the day lying on the windowsill in the living room, absorbing the direct sunlight on his body, something he had lacked after years locked up, with hardly any natural light. “I’m basically recovered,” he said, “except physically.”
The “sedition” of journalists
The sedition case against the Hong Kong journalists, on the other hand, can be seen as a barometer of the future of press freedom in a region that used to be considered a free-for-all. The events date back to the pro-democracy protests that shook Hong Kong in 2019. The two convicted, Chung Pui-kuen and Patrick Lam, are respectively the former editor-in-chief and former acting editor-in-chief of Stand Newsclosed in December 2021.
Vernon Yuen (NurPhoto/Getty Images)
The outlet had been one of the last to openly criticise the government for its crackdown on dissent following massive pro-democracy protests. Its closure came just months after that of another paper, Apple Dailywhose jailed founder Jimmy Lai faces charges of sedition and collusion with foreign forces under a national security law enacted in 2020 that Beijing used to quell protests. In the case of Chung and Lam, both were charged with conspiracy to edit and reproduce seditious publications, charges brought under a colonial-era sedition law. Both pleaded not guilty at the trial, which began in October 2022. The convicted men face a maximum of two years in prison and a fine of HK$5,000 (about 578 euros). The company that owns the publication has also been convicted of the same charge.
Judge Kwok Wai-kin said in his ruling that the newspaper Stand News became a tool to discredit the governments of Beijing and Hong Kong during the 2019 protests, according to AP. The ruling argues that a sentence is proportionate “where the speech is deemed, in the relevant context, to have caused potential harm to national security and is intended to seriously undermine the authority of the Chinese central government or the Hong Kong government, and should be stopped.” The case focused on 17 articles published by Stand NewsProsecutors said some were promoting “illegal ideologies” or defaming the security law and law enforcement officials. Judge Kwok has ruled that 11 had seditious intent.
Hong Kong was ranked 18th in terms of press freedom by Reporters Without Borders in 2002; today it has fallen to 135th out of 180 countries and regions evaluated. The organisation has condemned an “atrocious” verdict that sets a “very dangerous” precedent for journalists. “From now on, anyone who reports on facts that do not match the authorities’ official narrative could be convicted of sedition,” said Cédric Alvian, director of RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk, in a statement.
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