CHINA/FILE: A lawyer who says he was tortured before being imprisoned during ousted leader Bo Xilai's crime crackdown in Chongqing decries brutality of his era/Maoists claim political plot

Record ID: 1373621

  • Title: CHINA/FILE: A lawyer who says he was tortured before being imprisoned during ousted leader Bo Xilai's crime crackdown in Chongqing decries brutality of his era/Maoists claim political plot
  • Date: 30th March 2012
  • Summary: BEIJING, CHINA (FILE - MARCH 2010) (REUTERS) (*** FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY ***) BO AND OTHERS SEATED IN MEETING BO SPEAKING MEDIA AT MEETING BO WALKING AWAY AND WAVING
  • Embargoed: 14th April 2012 02:49
  • Keywords:
  • Location: China
  • Country: China
  • Topics: Crime,Domestic Politics,People
  • Reuters ID: LVAC6ZLNKEDO0T0G6VVA6DN8HDNJ
  • Aspect Ratio: 4:3
  • Story Text: The fall of Chinese leader Bo Xilai has pitted many of the country's liberals, who believe his rule was lawless and brutal, against left-wing hard-liners, who praised the resurgence of the Maoist ideology he promoted.
    Bo, who has been removed from his position as Communist Party Secretary of Chongqing, a powerful mega-city in central China, and not been seen since, made a high-profile crackdown on organised crime the centrepiece of his time in power.
    The campaign made Bo a household name in China, but could now contribute to his downfall, as allegations emerge of widespread torture.
    Lawyer Li Zhuang vigorously defended a client on trial in the anti-gang campaign and ended up in prison, charged with persuading his client falsely to claim torture.
    Fifty-year-old Li says he spent three days and nights strapped into a 'tiger seat,' a chair used for sleep deprivation he said was a staple in Bo's crusade against crime.
    "Not allowing someone to sleep, not allowing them to drink water or eat, disguised methods like these also count as extracting a confession through torture. All of the statements and material extracted through torture like this are illegal and should not be used in court. But just look at how the Chongqing gang trials were carried out," he said.
    Li said that some were not allowed to move for 10 days, while his own defendant was strung from the ceiling by handcuffs, just his toes touching the ground.
    Bo's campaign was praised for making Chongqing's streets safer.
    "Under Hitler, public security was at its best -- you know what I mean by this -- but how long can it carry on like that? The cost is too great. Misleading the public, smashing the law and the legal system, attacking lawyers and the system of client defence: the cost is too high," Li said.
    Bo's downfall was triggered when his long-time police chief Wang Lijun fled to a U.S. consulate where he hid for 24 hours until Chinese officials coaxed him out.
    The reasons for Wang's flight remain unclear.
    But Bo's downfall has distressed many of China's Maoists, left-wing intellectuals who supported his promises to ease the wealth gap, bridging socialist tradition and market wealth in what became called the "Chongqing model".
    Chongqing's economy grew by over 16 percent in 2011, making it the country's fastest urban growing region, and Bo pledged to improve the lot of millions of poor rural households.
    Many like Fan Jinggang, manager of Utopia, a Beijing-based website and bookstore that espouses the ideas of Mao Zedong and Karl Marx, believe there was a liberal conspiracy to trash Chongqing's bold experiment.
    "From their value system, China's pro-Western, liberal, intellectual elite could not tolerate his campaign. And these people have a great deal of influence, they directly hold a large portion of political power and have an even greater say in decision making. They are using this power to to maliciously attack Chongqing and its representative figure Bo Xilai," he said.
    In a new international twist, Britain this week said it had asked China to investigate the death late last year in Chongqing of a British man, Neil Heywood.
    There have been unconfirmed reports that Heywood had dealings with the Bo family and his death might be linked to Bo's fall.
    Bo had hoped for a place in the Standing Committee, the inner core of party power, when China's leadership changes later this year.
    Those hopes are almost certainly dashed. Whether he makes it out of China's biggest political saga in decades a free man remains to be seen.
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