China: For Freedom, Justice And Love — My Closing Statement To The Court
by Xu Zhiyong
This is Xu Zhiyong’s closing statement on January 22, 2014, at the end of his trial. According to his lawyer, he had only been able to read “about 10 minutes of it before the presiding judge stopped him, saying it was irrelevant to the case.”
( January 28, 2014, Beijing, Sri Lanka Guardian) You have accused me of disrupting public order for my efforts to push for rights to equal access to education, to allow children of migrant workers to sit for university entrance examinations where they reside, and for my calls that officials publicly declare their assets.
While on the face of it, this appears to be an issue of the boundary between a citizen’s right to free speech and public order, what this is, in fact, is the issue of whether or not you recognize a citizen’s constitutional rights.
