BEIJING - One of China's most celebrated human rights lawyers will face trial next week over comments he posted online
which were critical of the ruling
Communist Party, hisattorney said on
Thursday.
Pu Zhiqiang, who has represented labourcamp victims and dissident artist
Ai Weiwei,was detained a year and a half ago in anation wide crackdown on
dissent.
He faces a maximum eight year jail
sentence on charges of "Inciting
ethnic hatred" and"Picking quarrels
and provoking trouble", his lawyer
Mo Shaoping said.
Beijing's Number Two Intermediate
People's Court will consider the
evidence -seven poststhe lawyer
made on a microblog - in a trial Monday, Mo added.
They include messages questioning a
statemedia account of a deadly knife
attack blamedon assailants from the
mainly Muslim regionof Xinjiang, and
another accusing CommunistParty
officials of "Lying".
Baritone-voiced Pu was once celebrated
in China's state-run media for seeking
compensation for people sent to
"Re-education through labour" camps.
The lawyer has been subjected to
harsh treatment while in detention,
according to a his wife.
He was interrogated for almost 10 hours every day during the first three months in the detention centre. he was subjected
to in humane torture both physically
and mentally,"Meng Qun said in a public
letter last year.
Police detained Pu after he attended a
private seminar marking the 25th an
niversary of the1989 crackdown on
protesters in Tiananmen Square