CHINA: A Chinese court has sentenced nine villagers who were accused of taking part in a major riot against chemical plants in Huaxi village last April, but there are fears of repercussions for the defence lawyers in the case.
Tens of thousands of farmers tried to stop about 1,500 police and officials from entering the village of Huaxi, in the eastern province of Zhejiang, on April 10th last. The authorities were there to destroy roadblocks erected by villagers blocking deliveries to and from 13 chemical plants they say were erected illegally.
Locals said the factories were poisoning their crops and making their children sick.
Yesterday's sentences were lighter than expected. Four villagers were jailed and four received suspended sentences, which are often commuted in China. One person, Wang Xinwang, who turned government witness was acquitted.
All nine of the men claimed to have been tortured in custody.
However, the court in Lanxi meted out the heaviest sentence of five years to Liu Huirong (29) who was convicted of assaulting policemen. Liu's lawyer Wei Rujiu believes his client was punished for having the well-known Beijing-based advocate as his defender and said he was under pressure from the authorities for leading a group of top lawyers from the capital to represent the Huaxi accused for free.
"Liu Huirong didn't beat anyone. It's someone else who beat people, but he was sentenced much longer than other people as a revenge on me, because the local government hates me," said Mr Liu.
"I introduced the lawyers to Dongyang to help the villagers. We all charged the villagers nothing. Now I'm under heavy pressure. Beijing Judicial Bureau talked to the Beijing Law Commission and maybe I will be forced to resign."
I witnessed the immediate aftermath of the Huaxi riot, which became famous among local activists in China and was one of the first of a number of such riots as rampant industrialisation leads to clashes with locals left behind by development.
It was one of the most serious of 74,000 "mass incidents" which took place in China last year.
In a sign of just how sensitive the Huaxi story was, the Zhejiang provincial government punished eight officials from the nearby town of Dongyang and Huaxi in December for failing to "preserve social harmony", including the former party secretary of Dongyang, Tang Yong and mayor, Chen Fengwei.
Many of the plants have since been closed, locals say.