Arrest sheds light on Chinese lawyers’ protest over rape and murder case
Lawyers in Jiangxi locked in weeks-long demonstration, saying court is blocking access to documents in case in which four innocent people have been tortured and jailed
The arrest of a man from who joined a demonstration outside a court in Jiangxi province has shed light on a weeks-long protest by lawyers over a rape and murder case.
Wu Gan, 43, was placed under administrative detention for 10 days last Wednesday after he joined the demonstration outside the Jiangxi Higher People’s Court.
Wu, who was accused of disturbing public order and verbal assault, had been voicing his support for a protest by lawyers that had entered its third week.
Lawyers claim the court is barring access to case documents surrounding a rape, murder and robbery case in which four innocent people have been tortured and wrongfully jailed over the past decade.
Their protest – the largest so-called “Si Ke” style action this year – has attracted the support of more than 25 lawyers from across the mainland. Si Ke protests are an aggressive, prolonged approach mainland lawyers sometimes take to press their cases amid what they deem blatant legal injustice.
The state news agency Xinhua reported that Wu first arrived at the court on the previous Monday, when he verbally assaulted the court chief Zhang Zhonghou.