Politics before justice for Bo Xilai, Chen Kegui

Despite next week's 18th Communist Party congress, attention inside and outside China is increasingly riveted on the forthcoming criminal prosecution of Bo Xilai , the deposed leader whose case has already done so much to upset the party's carefully scripted plans for an orderly transfer of national power.

Virtually out of sight, by contrast, is another political prosecution - that of an ordinary farmer named Chen Kegui. He led an uncontroversial life until his uncle, the blind "barefoot lawyer" Chen Guangcheng, escaped from illegal confinement in their village in late April, straining China's relations with the United States.

The charges for which Bo and Chen Kegui have been investigated are very different. Bo is allegedly implicated in his wife's murder of Englishman Neil Heywood as well as in other offences including corruption. Chen is being held for having stabbed a local official in an effort to protect himself and his family. Thirty-odd police officers and thugs, infuriated by his uncle's escape, had illegally forced their way into the family farmhouse after midnight on April 27 without search or arrest warrants and, while beating and wounding Chen and his family, threatened to kill him.

Although the two suspects hail from opposite ends of China's political, economic and social hierarchies, they now have much in common, including the determination of the authorities to punish them for political reasons.

Both cases are shrouded in mystery. Each suspect has been held incommunicado for many months during investigation, Bo by the party's secretive Central Commission for Discipline Inspection controlled by the leaders who deposed him, and Chen by the same rural public security bureau that had persecuted and confined his uncle for many years. Both cases have now been transferred to the procuracy, which is purportedly reviewing the evidence before deciding whether to prosecute the suspects and for what crimes.

No relatives or friends have been allowed contact with either suspect. More importantly, neither has been permitted a lawyer of his choice, in clear violation of China's 2007 Lawyers Law. Although Bo's family has retained able defence counsel, the authorities have not yet acknowledged them. In Chen's case, the authorities have rejected the experienced human rights lawyers selected by his family and instead appointed two local lawyers, obviously operating under government instruction. They at first maintained they had been authorised by Chen's father. When that lie was exposed, they said they were authorised by Chen himself, a claim that cannot be verified since no outsider has access to him.

The same thing happened to Chen Guangcheng when in 2006 he was sentenced to more than four years' imprisonment by the same local authorities after two farcical trials. They assaulted lawyers chosen by his family and forced him to accept lawyers from the same firms that have now been appointed to defend his nephew.