(Adds comment from Chen Kegui’s wife)
By Sui-Lee Wee
BEIJING, May 19 (Reuters) – Blind Chinese activist Chen
Guangcheng said on Saturday the authorities’ drive to manipulate
his nephew’s case would not succeed, but instead would increase
public discontent over an episode that has renewed international
focus on China’s human rights and legal system.
Chen Guangcheng’s nephew, Chen Kegui, was denied his
family’s choice of lawyers on Friday to defend a charge of
“intentional homicide”, the latest in a series of moves to deny
him legal representation, and underscores the hardline stance
taken against Chen Guangcheng’s family.
Chen Guangcheng’s escape from house arrest in northeastern
China l ast month and subsequent refuge in the U.S. embassy
caused huge embarrassment for China, and led to a serious
diplomatic rift between the two superpowers while U.S. Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton was visiting Beijing.
Police told Chen Kegui’s lawyers that he had been appointed
two lawyers from the Yinan government-run legal aid centre,
though officials at the centre said they have no knowledge of
the case.
“(The government’s) tricks to deceive the lawyers will not
succeed,” Chen Guangcheng told Reuters by telephone. “The times
now are different. By doing this, they will only face more
accusations, more suspicion.”
“I think Chen Kegui’s case has become a symbol of the
measure of the fairness of China’s laws. So what they’re doing
now is only moving stones to crush their feet.”
Police in Yinan in Shandong, where Chen Kegui is held in a
detention centre, were not immediately available for comment.
Chen Kegui, in his early 30s, could face the death penalty
if found guilty of using knives to fend off local officials who
burst into his home on April 27, the day after they discovered
his blind uncle had escaped house arrest. Chen Kegui’s lawyers
said he did not kill anyone.
Chen Guangcheng, who is receiving treatment in a Beijing
hospital while he prepares to go to the United States to study,
said he informed U.S. embassy officials on Friday about the
authorities’ move to deny his nephew legal representation.
“This shows they (the authorities), as much as possible,
want to manipulate the Chen Kegui matter behind the scenes and
not let the outside world have any information,” he said.
In a videotaped message obtained by Reuters, Liu Fang, Chen
Kegui’s wife, urged the authorities to allow the two lawyers she
has appointed, Ding Xikui and Si Weijiang, to meet her husband.
Liu Fang said she thought it was “impossible” that Chen
Kegui had sought help from the legal aid centre.
“I know my husband very well and he will not listen to the
instructions of others,” she said.
Chen Guangcheng, a 40-year-old legal activist, said the
authorities’ move to block access to Chen Kegui’s family’s
choice of lawyers was the same tactic used against him.
Chen Guangcheng was sentenced in 2006 to more than four
years in jail on charges – denied by his wife and lawyers – that
he whipped up a crowd that disrupted traffic and damaged
property.
(Reporting by Sui-Lee Wee; Editing by Daniel Magnowski)
