YUEYANG, China\u2014 A Taiwanese activist pleaded guilty Monday to subverting state power in China’s first prosecution of a non-profit worker on criminal charges since Beijing passed a law tightening controls over foreign non-governmental organizations.<\/p>\n
A supporter said he had been forced to confess to crimes he hadn’t committed.<\/p>\n
\u201cI spread articles that maliciously attacked the Communist Party of China, China’s existing system and China’s government,\u201d the activist, Lee Ming-che, told the court in the central Chinese city of Yueyang. Lee said he also organized people and wrote articles \u201cintended to subvert the state’s power.\u201d<\/p>\n
Subversion of state power is a vaguely defined charge often used by authorities to muzzle dissent and imprison critics.<\/p>\n
Lee’s wife, Lee Ching-yu, who was in Yueyang for the trial, had warned that he might be pressured into pleading guilty. China’s wide-ranging crackdown on civil society has featured a string of televised \u201cconfessions\u201d believed to have been coerced from human rights activists accused of plots to overthrow the political system.<\/p>\n
On Monday, his supporters blasted the legal process.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis trial is illegal,\u201d said Hsiao I-Min, who travelled to Yueyang with Lee’s wife, and is with the Taiwanese non-governmental organization Judicial Reform Foundation. Lee \u201cwas forced to confess a false truth.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPursuing democracy and freedom is not a crime,\u201d Hsiao continued. \u201cMr. Lee was accused by the Chinese government of discussing and spreading ideas about democracy from the West. We think this is a basic human right.\u201d<\/p>\n
Security was tight at the Yueyang City Intermediate People’s Court, with barricades on the streets, dozens of security personnel patrolling the perimeter and reporters ordered to leave the area.<\/p>\n
Lee Ming-che, 42, has conducted online lectures on Taiwan’s democratization and managed a fund for families of political prisoners in China. He cleared immigration in the semi-autonomous Chinese territory of Macau on March 19 but never showed for a planned meeting with a friend later that day.<\/p>\n
Amnesty International and other rights organizations have called for his immediate release.<\/p>\n
The new law says foreign NGOs must not endanger China’s national security and ethnic unity, and subjects non-profit groups to close police supervision. It is seen as an attempt to clamp down on perceived threats to the ruling Communist Party’s control.<\/p>\n
Relations between Taiwan and China have been near an all-time low since the election of Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, whose Democratic Progressive Party has advocated Taiwan’s formal independence. China cut off contacts with Taiwan’s government in June, five months after Tsai was elected.<\/p>\n
Lee’s co-defendant, Peng Yuhua, who is from mainland China, also pleaded guilty. Peng said he had founded an organization called Palm Flower Company to pressure China to accept a multiparty political system. Lee was his deputy in charge of education, Peng said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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