Page 11 - ARUBA TODAY

A11
WORLD NEWS Thursday 27 december 2018

Prominent Chinese rights lawyer tried in closed proceedings Body of missing
toddler found in

By DAKE KANG figures are often scheduled Thai sugarcane
YANAN WANG during the Christmas pe- plantation
Associated Press riod, when many Western
TIANJIN, China (AP) — The diplomats and journalists BANGKOK (AP) — The
trial of a prominent hu- are away on holiday. search for a missing
man rights lawyer began in On Tuesday, five cars 2-year-old boy in which
northern China on Wednes- were stationed outside even elephants were
day with about two dozen Li’s home, she said, and a employed ended grimly
plainclothes officers sta- state security officer urged Tuesday with the discov-
tioned outside a court- her not to travel to Tianjin. ery of the toddler’s body
house and at least one On Wednesday, they cor- in a sugarcane planta-
supporter taken away by doned off her apartment tion in central Thailand.
police. unit with police tape. Suphan Buri provincial
Reporters, foreign diplo- Li and Wang Qiaoling, the governor Nimit Wan-
mats and supporters were wife of another rights law- chaithanawong said the
prevented from approach- yer who was detained, said boy’s body was found
ing the municipal court in Plainclothes security officers take away a supporter of Chinese in a statement that a state around five kilometers
human rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang near the Secondary
Tianjin city where lawyer Intermediate People’s Court of Tianjin northeastern China’s security officer offered (three miles) from where
Wang Quanzhang was be- Tianjin municipality, Wednesday, Dec. 26, 2018. early Wednesday to drive he was last seen, and of-
ing tried. Wang’s wife, Li Associated Press them to Tianjin, but he said ficials are collecting evi-
Wenzu, was kept from at- state power in 2016. He has ing point — it made clear that the trial proceedings dence to determine his
tending the proceedings been held without access that human rights lawyers were not public and that cause of death.
by security agents who to his lawyers or family for would come to face the they would not be allowed Sului Piew, the son of mi-
had blocked the exit of her more than three years. kinds of charges previ- to attend. grant workers from Myan-
apartment complex since Fengrui has pursued nu- ously reserved for those Li and Wang wrote that mar, went missing Dec.
Tuesday. merous sensitive cases and they defended. The coor- they declined the officer’s 17 when he went out to
Li told The Associated Press represented outspoken dinated sweep left lawyers offer and tried to leave Li’s play near the plantation
by phone Wednesday critics of the ruling Com- detained, disbarred, un- apartment complex, only where his parents work.
that Liu Weiguo, Wang’s munist Party. Wang rep- der house arrest or facing to find that all six gates out Hundreds of rescuers
government-appointed resented members of the vague charges. It’s known of the complex had police combed through an 80-
lawyer, confirmed the trial Falun Gong meditation as the “709 crackdown” for parked outside. acre (32-hectare) field
had started. But he did not sect that the government the date, July 9, on which Diplomats from the U.S., of 2-meter-high (6.6-foot-
tell her whether it was now has relentlessly suppressed the majority of them were Swiss, U.K. and German high) sugarcane plants
over or whether a verdict since banning it as an “evil taken. Most of the lawyers embassies were outside to search for the child,
had been reached. cult” in 1999. Group lead- have since been released, the Tianjin courthouse. They whose body was finally
The court said in a state- ers have been sentenced though they can no longer said they had requested discovered near a small
ment on its website that it to lengthy prison terms and practice. Wang is believed access to attend the trial irrigation stream on the
“lawfully decided not to ordinary followers locked to be one of the last to be but were denied. plantation. Police Col.
make public” the trial hear- up as alleged threats. tried. A man shouted his support Ronakorn Prakongsri told
ings because the case in- Legal advocacy had flour- Li has campaigned tire- for Wang Quanzhang be- television station ThaiPBS
volved state secrets. A de- ished in the decades fol- lessly for her husband’s re- fore he was shoved into a that Sului’s body was
cision will be announced lowing China’s opening lease. Earlier this month, car by plainclothes officers. found with injuries on
at a future date, the court up, as lawyers defended she and other wives of de- “A frail scholar and you all his legs but he added
said. the disenfranchised and tained lawyers shaved their torment him like this,” Yang that officers would wait
Wang is among more than contributed to a nascent heads in an act of protest. Chunlin yelled, referring to for an autopsy report
200 lawyers and legal activ- civil society. Wang himself In Chinese, the words for Wang. “Wang Quanzhang before they pursued in-
ists who were detained in a worked on several land “hair” and “law” are near- is the greatest person in vestigating the point.
sweeping 2015 crackdown. rights cases on behalf of homophones — “We can China.” Governor Nimit said the
A member of the Fengrui poor villagers. be hairless, but you can’t “I demand political reform, missing boy’s family had
law firm, among the most While these lawyers fre- be lawless,” they chanted. I demand civil rights, I de- informed authorities of his
recognized in the field quently faced intimidation She was given only two mand elections within the disappearance when his
broadly known in China as and harassment from the days’ notice that the trial party, respect for human 3-year-old friend told her
“rights defending,” he was authorities, the roundup in was to take place. The tri- rights,” Yang said before he parents that she saw Sului
charged with subversion of 2015 marked a severe turn- als of Chinese human rights was taken away.q being abducted.q