The eminent lawyer for Chinese rights, Lu Siwei, who was arrested and expelled from Laos in 2023, was sentenced to camera in China at 11 months in prison on Friday, his wife told Radio Free Asia.
Read, 52, who has been accused of illegal border passage, plans to appeal by the Chenghua district court in Chengdu, southwest of Sichuan province, said that his wife Zhang Chunxiao, who lives in the United States. The court also inflicted a fine of 10,000 yuan ($ 1,370).
Despite an American visa and a Chinese passport, Lu was arrested in the capital Lao Vientiane in July 2023 while on the way to reach his family in America. He was detained in the country of Southeast Asia for more than a month, before being forcibly repatriated to China.
A lawyer for insurance by profession, Lu is well known for having taken care of many politically sensitive cases, in particular by defending one of the 12 activists of Hong Kong imprisoned in the province of southern Guangdong after being surprised by fleeing by boat in Taiwan in 2020.
He was stripped of his legal license in 2021, prohibited from international trips and faced repeated harassment and constant monitoring for his human rights activities.
Rights activists have declared that his arrest in Laos and forced repatriation illustrates the growing and oppressive scope of the Chinese authorities beyond Chinese borders, often called transnational repression.
Upon his arrival in China, Lu was detained in the Sichuan XInduan detention center until his release on “Lease, awaiting trial” at the end of October 2023. He was officially arrested a year later, in October 2024, while the Chinese authorities sought to move forward with the prosecutor of the illegal border crossing of China in Laos.
Friday, the lawyers of Lu pleaded for a reduction of his sentence, citing the time he previously served during his detention abroad in Laos. But these requests were rejected, said his wife.
Taking into account the six months that LU served since its detention last year and the three months in 2023, the verdict should also have been announced on the day of the trial, said Zhang.
Her lawyers are now expecting to be in prison until August 9 at least on August 9, after counting the time purged during her detention before the hearing on Friday in camera, she added.
“Lawyers are fighting for them (the court) to have a public trial, but the day of the prior meeting at trial on April 16, I heard that someone who wanted to go to the trial was expelled,” said Zhang.
Also Friday, no success of spectators was issued and Lu’s friends were forbidden to attend the trial, she said. Instead, they were “… invited for tea, sent on tours and received warnings (by the police),” she said.
The police presence in uniform and in civilian clothes could be seen outside the court, where several police cars had been deployed, said a chengdu activist. He spoke subject to anonymity for security reasons.
“I saw police officers and in plain clothes for a walk in front of the field, constantly observing passers-by, which made people very nervous. I did not dare to approach the court,” he told RFA.
Published by Tenzin Pema and Mat Pennington