Chinese Police Recommend Indictment of Civic-Group Activist

Dec. 9, 2013 11:21 a.m. ETBEIJING—Police are urging prosecutors to indict a key figure in one of China’s most-prominent civic groups for his organizing a series of protests over access to education and government transparency, according to a police document.

Xu Zhiyong, seen in a July 2009 photo Associated Press

The Beijing police recommendation to indict Xu Zhiyong —photos of which were provided to The Wall Street Journal by his attorney—said the activist lawyer organized, planned and implemented a series of unauthorized demonstrations over a nine-month period that “seriously disturbed public order.”
Mr. Xu’s lawyer, Zhang Qingfang, said Monday that prosecutors have the option to reject the police recommendation but that he considered it “highly likely” his client would face trial. Mr. Zhang said he was in the process of submitting his own document to prosecutors rebutting the police recommendation.
“He’s innocent. What he did does not meet the standard of a crime,” he said of Mr. Xu, though he declined to discuss specifics.
The Beijing Public Security Bureau did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Calls to the city’s prosecutor’s office rang unanswered.
Mr. Xu, a legal scholar, is a founder of the New Citizens Movement, a loosely organized civic group that promotes greater rule of law and transparency and more-equal access to education. It advocates nonviolent acts to achieve them. Mr. Xu is one of nearly 20 members of the group to have been detained since March in a harsh, well-sustained political crackdown, according to Human Rights Watch.
The police document mentions several other members of the New Citizens Movement, including Wang Gongquan, a well-known venture capitalist who was detained on charges of disturbing public order in September, two months after police took Mr. Xu into custody.
The document specifically accuses Mr. Xu of helping “organize, plan and implement” seven demonstrations in Beijing between July 2012 and March 2013 demanding fairer access to education or asset disclosure by officials.
One demonstration drew more than 100 people to the gates of the Ministry of Education on July 4, 2012, and, the document said, “distorted national education policy and insulted education officials.” Another protest on March 9 attracted large crowds and featured “vulgar” banners, one of which said, “The country is not the Communist Party’s private garden,” according to the document.
Mr. Zhang, the lawyer, said police provided him with a copy of the document, which was dated Dec. 4, on Friday. Prosecutors likely wouldn’t make a decision on whether to indict Mr. Xu for another three months, said Mr. Zhang.
Chen Min, a social commentator who is close to Mr. Xu and writes extensively on the New Citizens Movement, said he thought an indictment might actually benefit the New Citizens Movement by attracting attention.
“The document bathes him in glory. How can you read it and think he’s a criminal? Everything that’s in there is honorable,” said Mr. Chen, who is better known by his pen name Xiao Shu. “They can make a person disappear, but they can’t make the demands of citizens disappear.”
Were Mr. Xu to be found guilty, it could spur debate in civil-society circles about the wisdom of the New Citizens Movement’s moderate approach, according to Maya Wang, a researcher with Human Rights Watch.
“It’s going to lead to a lot of rethinking among activists,” she said. “It will probably polarize civil society,” pushing some to be more strident in their criticism of the government and others to retreat further inside the boundaries of acceptable advocacy, she added.
If indicted and convicted on the recommended charges, Mr. Xu could face up to five years in prison, according to his lawyer.
—Olivia Geng contributed to this article.
Write to Josh Chin at josh.chin@wsj.com

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