Chinese Dissident’s Mother to Defend Him

The mother of detained Chinese dissident Wang Dan said Monday that she will defend her son against the capital charge of plotting to overthrow the government and that he is prepared for a heavy sentence.

“Two defense counsels are allowed. . . . I will be one of them,” said Wang Lingyun, a 61-year-old researcher at a museum who has no background in law.

“Wang Dan also wants me to defend him,” she said. Chinese laws allow accused to be defended by family members.

A court spokeswoman confirmed that Wang Dan, 27, has been charged with plotting to overthrow the government, a crime that carries a maximum penalty of death. The minimum sentence is 10 years, although the court can show leniency if it finds extenuating circumstances.

Wang’s mother said the court had yet to inform her of a date for the trial, but she said it could come as early as this week.

The dissident, detained without charge since May 1995, saw his mother Monday for the first time since then at a detention center in Beijing, the Hong Kong-based Information Center of Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China said in a statement. He said he had done nothing wrong, it reported, and that the charges are groundless.

Wang’s mother had said earlier that she would defend her son against the charge of collaborating with overseas subversive forces. “This charge does not stand up,” she said, adding that Wang Dan only took a correspondence course offered by UC Berkeley.

“It has nothing to do with politics. I was the one who wanted him to [take] the course. . . . It has nothing to do with overthrowing the government,” she said.

Asked to comment on her chances of winning the case, she said: “I’m not optimistic. But I must say it for the record. This will become history.”

Relatives said last week that they had found a lawyer willing to defend Wang after being given one day to find an attorney.

The lawyer retained by the family will defend the dissident against other charges in the indictment.

The New York-based group Human Rights in China, citing family members, said the charges accuse him of publishing essays overseas criticizing the Chinese government; setting up an aid program for dissidents released from prison who could not find work; receiving loans and aid from abroad; and accepting an offer to study at UC Berkeley.

“Of course he has done nothing to violate Chinese law,” his father, Wang Xian, said Monday. He said his son was coughing often and that the family was worried about his health.

The younger Wang suffers from an inflamed prostate gland and other ailments and is physically weak, the Hong Kong rights group said.

As a student at Beijing University, Wang helped lead the demonstrations that swept the city in 1989. After the military violently quelled the protests in June of that year, the government placed Wang atop its most-wanted list.

He was convicted of agitation against the government and served four years in prison. After he was released in 1993, Wang again worked for political reform. Police detained him last year after he organized the signing of a petition calling for freedom and tolerance.

Wang had been expected to face new charges since December, when the court that convicted veteran democracy activist Wei Jingsheng of plotting to overthrow the government also implicated the former student leader.

The court’s verdict said that Wei, who was imprisoned for 14 years, had links with people “convicted of counterrevolutionary crimes, including Wang Dan.” It also referred to a tape-recorded conversation between Wang and Wei but gave no details.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong, wary about upsetting its future Beijing masters when dissenters use it as an escape route, kept silent Monday about Chinese dissident Wang Xizhe following reports that he had fled to the British colony. China takes control of Hong Kong next year.