China Tries Online Human Rights Activist on Charges of Inciting Subversion

BEIJING, March 18 -- Hu Jia, a human rights activist and commentator, was tried in a Beijing court Tuesday on charges of inciting subversion against the Chinese government through his writings on the Internet.

Hu's lawyer, Li Fangping, said the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate Court would likely hand down its sentence in about a week. Hu, 34, who faces up to five years in prison, pleaded not guilty.

Li complained he was given only 20 minutes to defend Hu, which he said was not enough time to mount a persuasive case. "When the prosecutor spoke, the judge let him finish," Li said. "But when I spoke, the judge stopped me and said time was short."

Hu was detained Dec. 27 in what was seen as part of a crackdown by Chinese censors and security services to rid the Internet of dissidents in the lead-up to the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing this August. Formal charges were filed a month later. His wife, Zeng Jinyan, and their infant daughter, Qianci, were restricted from leaving Hu's Beijing apartment.

Zeng had worked with her husband on an Internet site that gathered and relayed dissident reporting and opinion on Chinese Web sites. She was a witness in Tuesday's trial and was allowed a brief meeting with her husband on the sidelines of the 3 1/2-hour proceeding.

Six of the articles, along with interviews with foreign reporters, were displayed as part of the evidence, Li said. In citing Hu's alleged crimes, the prosecutor said Hu in one of the interviews compared the Communist Party to the Mafia, Li added. In other writings, Hu has urged better protection for people with AIDS, more religious freedom and increased autonomy for Tibet -- all sensitive subjects in China.

Human Rights Watch, a U.S.-based advocacy group, denounced the legal proceedings against Hu and said the charges were inconsistent with international law because they sought to punish peaceful criticism of the Chinese political system.

"Hu Jia's case has been marked by grave rights violations from the start," Sophie Richardson, the Asia advocacy director for Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. "His arrest was political, the charges are political and his trial is political."

Hu was arrested after giving recorded testimony to the European Parliament and publishing an open letter urging the world to focus on human rights concerns in connection with the Olympics. That appeal ran directly counter to the Communist Party's campaign to divorce political concerns, including human rights, from the festive Olympic observances.

Premier Wen Jiabao, in a news conference at the close of China's annual legislative session, denied that Hu's case was part of a party campaign to put away dissidents in advance of the Olympics. "I can make it very clear to you that China is a country under the rule of law," he said. "All such cases will be dealt with according to the law."

Wen said China is in the middle of vast reforms, including in its political and legal systems, that are aimed in part at improving judicial independence. In China's system as it stands now, the courts have remained subservient to political direction from the Communist Party.