Yaxue Cao, July 28, 2021 There is no sun, moon and stars but dazzling lights that blind me day and night, With two armed soldiers guarding me, six shifts a day, through long and tormentous hours. Fate is fickle, I am but a living corpse, eyes wide open, forbidden to speak. In unbearable suffering I hold on to faith, as I silently miss Dawu City. Su [...] Keep reading »

Dawu Legal Team, July 23, 2021  July 23, 2021, the ninth day of the Dawu trial. As today’s session started, lawyer Hao Yachao (郝亚超) lodged a formal statement with the court: we do not accept the court’s overtime schedule, and the Gaobeidian Court should comply with the Labor Law and protect the right to rest of the defense lawyers and th [...] Keep reading »

Dawu Legal Team, July 22, 2021 Today’s court session mainly focused on three crimes — “disrupting market operations,” “coercing business transactions,” and “fraud” — as charged by the procuratorate. The court investigation specifically involved charged offenses numbered (6), (7), (8), and (10) alleged in the indictment. Th [...] Keep reading »

Dawu Legal Team, July 21, 2021 The Dawu trial has been in session for seven days. After working overtime on weekends and with three consecutive days of 12-hour or longer sessions, the court has now completed its investigation of the crime of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” the crime of “obstructing officers in the discharge of dutie [...] Keep reading »

Dawu Legal Team, July 20, 2021 The court session ended late [three days in a row]: at 23:30 the day before yesterday; at 22:30 yesterday; and at 22:40 today. During today’s session, the prosecutors finished presenting their evidence relating to the September 14 [2015] incident and the June 21 [2020] incident, and the defense lawyers completed the [...] Keep reading »

Dawu Legal Team, July 19, 2021 As the trial continues and the arguments get into the nitty-gritty details of various incidents, the daily briefings, written in what short time the defense lawyers have after long hours of court sessions, may not always be immediately clear in terms of who is who and what is what. We are doing our best to provide cla [...] Keep reading »

Dawu Legal Team, July 18, 2021 On the fourth day of the trial, the sky in Gaobeidian City was gloomy with light rain, as if it were grieving! The trial started at 9 o’clock in the morning. The Gaobeidian Municipal Court continued yesterday’s trial proceedings of evidence production and cross-examination of the alleged crime of “gather [...] Keep reading »

Dawu Legal Team, July 17, 2021 At 9 a.m., on July 17, 2021, the Dawu trial continued. In the morning, the defense lawyers continued to question the defendants who are suspected of “gathering a crowd to assault state organs”. The defense counsel once again filed an application to exclude illegal evidence based on new clues he learned about illeg [...] Keep reading »

Dawu Legal Team, July 16, 2021 At 9 a.m. on July 16, 2021, the Dawu trial resumed for the second day. ​​In the morning, the defendants mainly expressed their opinions on the decision of the pre-trial meetings. The prosecutors mainly responded to the defendants and defense lawyers’ request to exclude illegal evidence, to which the defense lawy [...] Keep reading »