Authorities in the eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou have charged a veteran democracy activist with subversion after detaining him for 10 months for publishing a poem online in the wake of calls for a "jasmine revolution" inspired by the Arab Spring.
The formal charge of "incitement to subvert state power" means that Zhu Yufu, a founding member of the now-banned opposition China Democracy Party (CDP), will likely soon stand trial, according to his lawyer.
"They are preparing for the trial now," said lawyer Li Dunyong in an interview this week. "I am in the process of finding out exactly what stage Zhu Yufu's case is at."
He said Zhu's trial was likely to take place after the Lunar New Year holiday, which begins this weekend.
"This case is related to the jasmine revolutions in the Middle East, because he wrote that poem under those particular circumstances," Li said. "If he had [written it] in ordinary times, then it wouldn't have mattered; it was a problem because he published it at that time."
However, he said Zhu remained defiant. "He's a tough old stick now, and he doesn't care," Li said. "He says it's not too bad inside; the detention center gave him a new overcoat because the weather has been cold lately."
Zhu was formally detained by Hangzhou police last March after he posted his poem, titled "It Is Time" online.
"It is time, people of China! It is time," the poem read. "The square belongs to us all; our feet are our own."
"It is time to use our feet to go to the square and to make a choice ... We should use our choices to decide the future of China," it said.
Dozens detained
China has detained dozens of lawyers, journalists, bloggers, dissidents and rights activists since online protest appeals began circulating in China in mid-February, inspired by a series of uprisings in the Arab world, rights groups say.
While the planned silent walking protests in major cities were sparsely attended, the anonymous calls for a "jasmine revolution" prompted a nationwide security clampdown that has shown few signs of easing in recent months, with the authorities sentencing a string of activists to lengthy jail terms for subversion.
"It's all because he wrote a poem, I suppose," said Zhu's wife Jiang Hangli. "I haven't been to visit him because I'm not allowed to see him."
Zhu, 60, is a veteran activist who first caught the attention of the authorities during the Democracy Wall movement of 1978. He was sentenced in 1998 to a seven-year jail term for his involvement with an unprecedented attempt to register the Zhejiang provincial branch of the CDP as a civil organization with the authorities. Prior to his most recent arrest, he had been under frequent surveillance by police.
Zhu's charge sheet mentioned his habit of giving interviews to foreign media, his publishing of "subversive" opinions, his propaganda on behalf of the CDP and his online promotion of calls for a "jasmine revolution" in China, according to fellow CDP activist Zou Wei.
"In a normal democratic system, Zhu Yufu's opinions would not be criminalized," Zou said. "The government's suppression of dissenting voices actually proves that this is a government without a conscience which hasn't yet discarded the model of dictatorship."
U.S.-based rights activist Liu Qing said the Communist Party was hoping to promote ideological unity in its own ranks by creating a climate of fear with such sentences.
"The Chinese Communist Party is extremely nervous right now," Liu said. "They want to terrorize anyone who tries to pursue democracy and freedom for society."
"The government has sentenced a number of people lately, and Zhu Yufu is also part of this."
Reported by Gao Shan for RFA's Mandarin service and by Grace Kei Lai-see for the Cantonese service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.