Supporters of the defendants were kept outside the court. The sign in one supporter's hands read "Public hearing is not public. People's court is afraid of the people." (Photo courtesy of "Rights Campaign")
The material they posted consisted mainly of an article and video testimony from the victim’s mother who alleged that her daughter, 25-year-old Yan Xiaoling, was raped by a gang of men and then murdered in February 2008. She also alleged that the gang had ties to local police.
The article and video clip spread quickly on popular Chinese web forums. Fujian police denied the rape allegations in a June 24 press conference, and then arrested the defendants for libel charges. This charge was later changed to “making false allegations.”
The police said that Yan died of a failed pregnancy. According to Yan’s mother, they removed her daughter’s uterus and vagina to destroy evidence of the crime.
Police refused requests by the defendants attorneys’ to meet with their clients during the detention, claiming that the case involved state secretes.
Major witnesses, including the victim’s mother, were denied entrance to the court during the trail.
“This is just ridiculous!” said the tearful daughter of activist Fan Yanqiong, one of the three that originally collated and posted the mother’s testimony.
“The three defendants and their lawyers repeatedly asked for witness testimony, but the judge told us to wait. Then he said it was not necessary to have the witnesses in court.”
Also kept outside the court were over 100 supporters of the three defendants. Only six family members of the defendants were admitted to the hearing.
Attorney Liu Xiaoyuan representing another activist You Jingyou criticized the court for obstructing the investigation of the case. “It is not normal that the judge refuses to let in the witnesses,” Liu said. “They said the victim’s mother was an accomplice, but no formal charge has been filed against her so far.”
Liu also said “Drafting a document or making a video does not make them guilty of this crime. They just listed to Yan Xiaoling's mother and prepared materials, they didn't tell her what to say,” according to Reuters.
Fan Yanqiong’s daughter also expressed concerns for her father’s health.
Fan, paralyzed from waist down, was given oxygen inhalation in court when her blood pressure rose to 160. But she was not relieved from the eleven-hour hearing to seek further treatment. Police also refused Fan’s family’s repeated requests for parole to seek medical treatment, stating that she would “undermine social order.”
Read the original Chinese article.
