Chinese rights lawyer ‘pleads guilty’ to subversion
Wife of Xie Yang, whose allegations of torture in custody attracted international attention, says her husband was forced into discrediting himself
A Chinese human rights lawyer, whose claims of torture in detention drew international concern, pleaded guilty in court on Monday to subversion.
Xie Yang appeared in the Changsha Intermediate People’s Court in Hunan province on charges of inciting subversion of state power and disrupting order in the court, the court said in a statement.
Xie, who has taken on many politically sensitive cases, was detained in July 2015 during a nationwide round-up of rights lawyers and activists known as the “709 crackdown”, which saw more than 200 rights defenders taken away for interrogation or detention.
His case drew international attention after his defence lawyer, Chen Jiangang, released transcripts of their meetings detailing Xie’s accounts of torture by the authorities during his initial confinement and subsequent detention.
But Xie pleaded guilty on Monday and denied he had been tortured in custody, saying he apologised for “misleading the public”, according to transcripts of the court proceedings on the court’s social media account.
The court transcripts also said Xie admitted he was “brainwashed” at training sessions in Hong Kong and South Korea with “wrong ideas such as Western constitutionalism”.
