Detained Chinese lawyer Pu Zhiqiang insists charges are trumped up as lawyers prepare for pre-trial meeting

Detained human rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang, who faces up to eight years in jail for charges his supporters say were punishment for his outspokenness, insisted on his innocence yesterday on the eve of a court meeting that prepares for his trial, his lawyer said.

But lawyer Shang Baojun said he did not know when the trial would take place. Pre-trial meetings can take place anytime from days to months before the actual trial.

Pu, charged with “inciting ethnic hatred” and “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”, insisted that he had done nothing that amounted to those criminal charges, said Shang, who visited him in custody.

According to his indictment, Pu was incriminated for scathing remarks published in about 30 microblog messages dealing with the government’s handling of an ethnic conflict in Kunming in Yunnan province last year and his barbed comments on two officials.

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“While he admitted that his remarks were emotionally charged, sarcastic and even rude sometimes, he is willing to apologise. But he doesn’t think he has broken the law,” Shang said.