Jailing of Xu Zhiyong dashes hopes of China's activists

When a Chinese court sentenced a prominent legal activist to four years in prison on Sunday, it did not just conclude a controversial investigation that was at least nine months in the making. In finding Xu Zhiyong guilty of "gathering a crowd to disrupt public order", the Beijing Number One Intermediate People's Court also marked the end of an era in Chinese activism.

Since December, at least six people affiliated with Mr Xu's New Citizens' Movement have been prosecuted, with another four trials expected next week. Mr Xu's lawyer, Zhang Qingfang, has described his client's trial as a "laughing stock", saying that the result had been preordained by the Chinese Communist party.

"The last remaining dignity of China's legal system has been destroyed," Mr Zhang quoted his client as saying at Sunday's hearing. He added that the conviction was "illegal, unreasonable and unfair".

Mr Xu has called on the country's leaders to introduce rules to require government officials to disclose their assets in an attempt to combat widespread corruption.

Human rights organisations condemned the Xu conviction. "The Communist party maintains a monopoly on the political process and anyone that speaks out will be severely dealt with," said Roseann Rife, East Asia research director for Amnesty International. "The persecution of those associated with the New Citizens Movement demonstrates how fearful the Chinese leadership is of public calls for change."

Separately, Chinese authorities have confirmed the detention of Ilham Tohti, a prominent academic from China's northwestern Xinjiang region, on suspicion of colluding with a "terrorist organisation" and inciting unrest in the energy-rich territory. Like Mr Xu, a 40 year-old lawyer who was initially placed under house arrest last April, Mr Tohti is considered to have been a moderate voice in the increasingly violent conflict between Chinese security forces and Muslim separatists in Xinjiang.

Another prominent dissident, Hu Jia, said on Sunday evening that he too had been taken in for questioning by security officials. "It definitely concerns my online appeals for Ilham Tohti and Xu Zhiyong," Mr Hu said on his twitter account. He could not be reached on his mobile telephone, which had been turned off.

Mr Xu first made his mark on China's legal landscape a decade ago, when he and a small group of like-minded lawyers successfully lobbied for the abolition of a "repatriation" system used by police to temporarily detain and then expel rural petitioners, beggars and other undesirables from urban areas. Their cause was spurred in 2003 by the death in custody of Sun Zhigang, a young college graduate who had been inadvertently caught up in a police dragnet in the southern city of Guangzhou.

A decade later, the Chinese government's decision last November to end its network of "re-education through labour" camps demonstrated how much could be accomplished by a loosely affiliated network of lawyers and other activists. "Xu was an innovator who has been central to rights activism in China," said Maya Wang, a Hong Kong-based researcher with Human Rights Watch. "There were periodic crackdowns but there was always the sense that things were moving forward . . . His conviction, ten years on from his first success that generated so much optimism about the legal rights movement, is quite significant from a historical perspective."

The community that Mr Xu rallied and supported over the past decade was briefly in evidence during his one-day trial last Wednesday. Dozens of his friends, colleagues and sympathisers gathered on street corners near the court, occasionally chanting slogans or unfurling banners before being carted off by the authorities.

On Sunday morning, however, police had expanded their perimeter to reclaim those corners and harassed even small groups of people who tried to keep a silent vigil over Mr Xu's sentencing. "Xi Jinping said he was going to catch tigers," said Yang Jiawen, referring to the anti-corruption campaign orchestrated by China's president since he took power in March. "Instead they have arrested Xu Zhiyong. Where is our democracy? They aren't fooling anyone."

Mr Yang, who said he had met with the lawyer a few times over the years, sat quietly with two other Xu supporters at a bus stop half a block away from the courthouse. The three were eventually noticed by police and taken away in a van.

A non-governmental organisation founded by Mr Xu, the Open Constitution Initiative, was disbanded by the authorities in 2009. He deliberately organised the New Citizens' Movement along much looser lines. "He tried to innovate again by linking what a lot of people considered to be a marginalised political rights community with mainstream society, and focused on mainstream topics such as education, discrimination and corruption," said Ms Wang at Human Rights Watch.

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For the time being, Mr Xu's conviction has stymied even this moderate strategy, which tried to avoid direct confrontations with the government. "It continues to be a cat-and-mouse situation," Ms Wang added. "As long as these grievances remain, the activist movement will continue. But what direction it will take and its relationship with the government are now uncertain."

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Xinjiang violence leaves 12 dead

Twelve people died in violent incidents in China's northwest Xinjiang region on Friday, the official Xinhua news agency reported over the weekend, in a continuation of the unrest that plagued the area in 2013, writes Tom Mitchell in Beijing.

Chinese security forces killed six people in a firefight with "terrorist suspects" in Xinhe county, Aksu prefecture. Another six people were killed in explosions "ignited by themselves", Xinhua said. Five other people were arrested and one policeman was injured.

Xinjiang is home to a large population of Muslim Uighurs, many of whom resent what they describe as their own marginalisation by an influx of Chinese investment and settlers into the energy-rich region. Such grievances have fuelled separatist groups such as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, which Beijing considers to be a terrorist group.

More than 100 people died in ethnic unrest in Xinjiang in 2013, with most of the violence concentrated near Kashgar. In late December, eight people died in a "violent terrorist attack" in Yarkand county.

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