Chinese court grants retrial for rights activist

It’s rare for Chinese courts to admit they have made a mistake, even when the evidence of error is overwhelming. So when Yuan Weijing, 30, heard this week that an appeals court had ruled invalid her husband’s conviction, she jumped for joy.

“I couldn’t sleep last night, I was so excited,” she said. “I’m very, very happy.”

Yuan’s husband, human rights activist Chen Guangcheng, was convicted in August of disrupting traffic and damaging property and sentenced to four years and three months in prison. A report in the official New China News Agency said he was accused of inciting some of his relatives to damage police cars, smash windows, overturn cars and beat police officers.

On Monday, the Linyi City Intermediate Court in eastern Shandong province overturned the sentence, citing insufficient evidence. It was only a partial victory for Chen: The court sent the case back to Yinan County Court for retrial.

Local supporters maintain that the original charges by the Yinan court were fabricated. His real crime, they say, was defending those too poor and uneducated to have their rights protected.

Chen, blinded by fever as a child, educated himself in the law and used his skill to fight discrimination against farmers and the disabled. Starting late last year, he publicized the activities of overzealous birth-control officials who were forcing tens of thousands of area villagers to have late-term abortions and sterilizations.

Critics around the world, including the U.S. State Department and dozens of prominent overseas scholars and rights campaigners, joined in condemning the conviction and the handling of his case.

Despite Monday’s decision, Chen, 34, remains in jail, with another trial not expected to begin for a month or more.

“I don’t think the chance of justice in the second round is very big,” said Yuan, who has been under house arrest without formal charges for over a year, unable to visit a doctor downtown or see her 3-year-old son. “But at least we have another chance at justice.”

The case has exposed huge problems with the Chinese legal system.

“This is a scandal,” said Jerome Cohen, a China legal scholar and professor at New York University. “What they call a trial is just a farce.... Why should a civilized country do that?”

In the months before the trial, Chen’s lawyers and supporters say they were beaten repeatedly when they tried to visit him during his extended house arrest. On the day before the trial, local police arrested some members of his defense team on theft charges, preventing them from appearing in court. When Chen refused to accept the replacement attorneys offered, the court went ahead with the trial anyway. As soon as the trial was over, his original attorneys were released.

“They also claimed the trial was open, but in fact they barred people from entering,” Yuan said. “And all the witnesses against my husband were tortured into doing so by the police who forced them to memorize their testimony in advance. If they slipped up and didn’t remember all the words, they were beaten.”

Yuan said guards surrounded her home 24 hours a day and beat her several times when she tried to leave.

“In December of 2005, I tried to go out to buy cake ingredients for Chinese New Year,” she said. “The men held me by my arms and legs as they dragged my waist on the ground more than 30 feet. It was incredibly painful.”

Yuan’s claims could not be independently verified. An official at the local court declined to comment, and a man at the Yinan Public Security Bureau who identified himself only as Liu denied any torture or wrongdoing.

“It’s nonsense; we didn’t do any of those things,” he said. “It’s not true.”

Residents in Dongshigu village, where Chen lives, say a 50-member team has gone door to door in recent weeks telling them not to talk to outsiders about the case. “You have kids, so watch out,” team members have told them, a villager said. “We will hear everything over the phone if you talk to anyone.”

One villager, who declined to give her name, said Monday’s appellate court decision was a welcome surprise. “Before, we didn’t have any hope,” said the neighbor, who said she managed to elude official efforts to have her sterilized. “All the officials protect themselves. They belong to the same system.”

Li Jinsong, an attorney with the Beijing Yitong Law Firm who handled Chen’s appeal, heralded the decision as a step forward.

“Nobody likes to be forced to admit their mistake; it’s human nature,” he said. “What we are fighting for is not simply any individual’s rights but the dignity of laws. This will make corrupt local officials realize that they can’t ‘cover the sky with a single hand,’ ” -- that is, hide the truth from ordinary people.

Others, however, questioned how much of a precedent this represented for China’s legal system.

“It’s encouraging,” said Nicholas Bequelin, China researcher with Human Rights Watch, a New York-based rights advocacy group. “But it’s a political decision, not a judicial one.”

Chinese officials generally give little insight into the logic behind their decisions. But human rights activists and legal experts said this did not appear to represent a legal check on official abuses or a strengthening of rule of law as much as it reflected Beijing’s desire to blunt damage to its international reputation.

All lawsuits in China, particularly sensitive cases, are subject to political influence in a system where the Communist Party is above the law.

The fact that it took some time to decide on the appeal in a court where most are denied quickly suggests internal divisions within the party, analysts said.

The factors being weighed, they surmise, included the potential loss of international prestige versus the risk that this decision would empower social activists and the danger that birth control programs elsewhere in the country would stop meeting their quotas.

mark.magnier@latimes.com

Yin Lijin in The Times’ Beijing Bureau contributed to this report.