European Union diplomats were denied entry to a Suzhou courtroom on Wednesday, as they tried to monitor the start of the trial of two Chinese human rights advocates who were detained last year on their way to meet EU officials in Beijing.
“It is highly regrettable that EU representatives of diplomatic missions accredited to China were denied access to the courtroom. This denial undermines trust in due process requirements in China,” said Nabila Massrali, the bloc’s foreign affairs spokeswoman.
Yu Wensheng, a prominent human rights lawyer, and his wife Xu Yan were detained on April 13, 2023. The trial is being held in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, a city 110km (68 miles) west of Shanghai.
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“The EU reiterates its earlier concerns about the well-being of Yu Wensheng and Xu Yan and we call for their immediate release,” Massrali said.
The EU, she added, sought “immediate clarifications from the authorities on the sudden and unexplained detention by the police of two lawyers, Wang Yu and Yang Hui, who also tried to attend the trial”.
Yu has already spent years in prison. He was detained in 2018, hours after writing an open letter calling for constitutional reforms in China, including multi-candidate elections. Xu said at the time that her husband was subsequently investigated for and charged with inciting subversion of state power. He was given a four-year sentence in 2020, but was released from prison in 2022.
In April 2023, the couple had been scheduled to meet with senior EU diplomats who had travelled from Brussels. Josep Borrell, the EU’s de facto foreign minister, was originally supposed to be part of that delegation but had to postpone his trip after testing positive for Covid-19.
According to a letter sent later by a group of United Nations special rapporteurs to Chinese authorities, the pair were detained by plain-clothes police officers after trying to board the subway en route to the EU’s office in Beijing.
Yu and Xu were formally arrested on April 15. According to a video posted to Xu’s account on X, formerly known as Twitter, they were detained for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” – a criminal charge widely criticised for its potential to be used to muzzle dissent.
Known as a catch-all offence or a “pocket crime”, the charge has been used by Chinese authorities against human rights activists and dissidents for a wide range of behaviours.
According to the UN rapporteurs’ account, Yu’s brother was shown an arrest warrant on May 21, 2023 detailing the charges but was not permitted to copy or photograph it.
The pair was repeatedly denied access to their lawyers through most of 2023, according to the letter. Xu Yan was finally permitted to meet lawyers that December, and she told them she had begun a hunger strike in October, because of the repeated lack of access to counsel.
The UN representatives said they were “dismayed” by the “alleged arbitrary detention” of the couple and voiced “deep concern” about the “condition of their detention”.
At the time of those detentions, Brussels said that three other human rights lawyers connected to the EU meeting – Wang Quanzhang, Wang Yu and Bao Longjun – had been placed under house arrest.
China’s Foreign Ministry has previously said that “Chinese authorities handle cases according to the law”.
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