August 6, 2013 3:18 pm
Bo Xilai supporter arrested for urging masses to gatecrash trial
By Jamil Anderlini in Beijing
A prominent journalist and supporter of Bo Xilai has been arrested by police in Beijing after he allegedly called on ordinary citizens to gatecrash the trial of the disgraced Chinese leader, which is expected to be held in eastern China in the next few days, and spring him from jail.
Song Yangbiao, a journalist from Chinese newspaper The Time Weekly, was detained on Monday and is facing charges of “picking quarrels and provoking troubles”, a crime often used to punish political activists and dissidents.
Mr Song could face up to five years in prison if convicted.
His arrest emphasises just how worried China’s leaders are about a potential backlash as they prepare for the country’s most important political trial since 1981 when the “Gang of Four”, led by Mao Zedong’s last wife Jiang Qing, were convicted in a show trial.
Mr Bo remains an extremely popular figure among conservative “leftists”, disaffected people who have missed out on China’s economic boom, former allies in the Chinese leadership and military, and ordinary people who lived in the cities he used to govern.
His downfall last year was triggered when a subordinate, Wang Lijun, fled to a US consulate in western China and requested asylum, saying Mr Bo was trying to kill him and claiming Mr Bo’s wife had murdered British citizen Neil Heywood in November 2011.
In two separate and hasty trials last year, Mr Bo’s wife, Gu Kailai, was convicted of murder and given a suspended death sentence while Wang was sentenced to 15 years in prison for defection, abuse of power and bribe-taking.
“His concept of ‘collective prosperity’ is very appealing to the Chinese people and that is why they still support him”
- Yu Li, commentator
The lurid case shook the ruling Communist party to the core as Mr Bo is not only one of the party’s most prominent “princelings”, as the children of the Communist founding fathers are known, but he was also in the 25-member ruling politburo and poised for promotion before he was purged.
As party secretary of Chongqing, a city-state with a population the size of Canada’s, Mr Bo was feted for tackling crime and improving the lives of ordinary people. He was also revered by conservative leftists who supported his campaign of Maoist slogans and nostalgic populism.
“The ordinary masses in Chongqing saw Bo Xilai transform the city from a poor one to one with high GDP growth, a low crime rate and a low unemployment rate,” said Yu Li, a popular leftist commentator. “His concept of ‘collective prosperity’ is very appealing to the Chinese people and that is why they still support him.”
His supporters are also angry that Mr Bo’s fate appears to have been already decided by China’s top leaders and his impending trial will be little more than a chance for his enemies to malign him further. Mr Bo seems certain to be given a hefty prison sentence on charges of bribery, embezzlement and abuse of power.
Mr Song is a staunch Maoist and leftist. He has said that Mao’s only fault was that he was too merciful towards “rightists” and political liberals. He has also stated publicly that in sentencing Mr Bo, the Communist party would be signing its own death warrant.
On Tuesday, police in Beijing confirmed Mr Song had been detained while family members and a lawyer representing him confirmed the charges.
In posts to the online microblog site Weibo that have since been deleted, Mr Song called on the masses to converge on Mr Bo’s trial in the eastern city of Jinan and break him out of prison, according to people who read them.
Security around the courtroom in Jinan is already tight, with the area patrolled by heavily armed soldiers who appear from photographs posted online to be People’s Liberation Army combat troops.
The government’s propaganda machine is also warming up for the impending trial, with official news outlets lauding Mr Bo’s downfall as a triumph in the party’s efforts to tackle corruption. Mr Bo’s fate “is indicative of the Communist Party of China’s resolve to sniff out every corrupt pheromone, punish every guilty official and constantly eliminate the soil which breeds graft, so as to earn people’s trust with actual results,” state news agency Xinhua said on Tuesday.
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/61e08ee8-fe95-11e2-97dc-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2bF5CZxvX 【多维新闻】本文网址：http://blog.dwnews.com/post-349302.html | 
