After Sun Dawu, a Hebei private entrepreneur and founder of the Dawu Group who is known as the conscience of Chinese entrepreneurs, and his family and employees were arrested by authorities, the case was transferred to the prosecutor’s office on April 26, but was brought to court just ten days later, resulting in defense lawyers being unable to complete their basic defense work and being pressured by authorities.
On April 21, the authorities issued a notice of arrest for Sun Dawu and 21 others, and on April 26, the Public Security Bureau of Gaobeidian City, Hebei Province, issued an announcement that Sun Dawu and others from Hebei Dawu Agricultural and Animal Husbandry Group Co.
Latest development: authorities record ten days to rush to court
According to reliable sources, on May 6, the first day after the May Day holiday on the mainland, defense lawyers received notices from the Gaobeidian City People’s Court, and were told that the case of Sun Dawu and 21 others (or units) had been prosecuted by the Gaobeidian City People’s Procuratorate to that court.
The case was transferred to the procuratorate for review and prosecution on April 26 and was brought to the court on May 6, just ten days, including the May Day holiday.
According to the normal procedure, the defense lawyers need to complete the basic defense work from the review of the prosecutor’s office to the court, such as reading the files, meeting with the clients and submitting legal opinions. In this case, there were 21 defendants (or defendant units), 9 charges, 348 files and appraisal materials, and almost none of the defense lawyers were able to complete these tasks within 10 days, and some of them were not even able to go to the procuratorate to submit the commissioning procedures.
The charges in the authorities’ notice of arrest include the crime of illegal absorption of public deposits, the crime of picking quarrels and provoking trouble, the crime of illegal mining, the crime of gathering a crowd to storm the state organs, the crime of illegal occupation of agricultural land, the crime of forced trade, the crime of disrupting production and operation, and the crime of obstructing public service.
The lawyer team said that the number of people involved in this case, the number of suspected crimes file materials, the short review and prosecution time, in the history of the mainland prosecution and even legal history can be said to have set a unique historical precedent.
The People’s Court of Gaobeidian City has urged and requested the defendants to submit the commissioning procedures to the court before the end of the day on May 7 at the latest, and has sent staff directly to some of the defendants’ law firms to deliver the indictment and file CDs.
The authorities put pressure on lawyers to close the case as soon as possible
According to a source on May 7, the authorities were not expected to close the case so quickly, and at the same time put pressure on the lawyers, the officials are trampling on the law in the first place.
The informant said: “(The authorities) is now compressing all the time and space to identify and protect it, to exclude the so-called ‘interference’, they think it is interference, the purpose is to get the case down as soon as possible. Now soon to ‘July 1’, (the Communist Party) 100th anniversary, ‘June 4’ and ‘July 1’ are more sensitive point in time, they must want to avoid this time. “
He said that the lawyers have to go to the court to defend the lawyer’s right to identify, legitimate rights and interests, to speak out, but even the file can not read, how to go to court to defend the client? Now not to form a strong external public opinion pressure, is not at all to stop the official this strong push.
In addition to disguising to prevent the lawyers from defending, the informant said that the authorities also approached various law firms, judicial departments and administrative departments to put pressure on the lawyers not to speak out.
When several defense lawyers in the case went to the Gaobeidian Public Security Bureau in March this year to meet with their clients, they were obstructed by the police on various pretexts.
The more than two dozen people arrested or placed under residential surveillance by authorities in November 2020 in the Sun Dawu case included Sun Dawu, his family and employees of the group. Subsequently, the local government sent 29 working groups to take over Sun Dawu’s Dawu Group.
Previously in August 2020, the Dawu Group’s houses were forcibly demolished, leading to clashes between the Dawu Group and local police, with many Dawu Group employees and managers being arrested at one point and the Dawu Group publicly protesting.
Sun Dawu also went public in 2019 with the death of tens of thousands of pigs at the Dawu Group, asking the government to confirm whether there was an outbreak of African swine fever in the area; he was previously sentenced to three years in prison and four years of probation in 2003 for remarks that touched the Communist Party’s red line.
In a recent interview with the Voice of America, Hu Ping, editor-in-chief emeritus of Beijing Spring, said that Sun Dawu is an excellent private entrepreneur, but more importantly, he has a strong sense of civic consciousness and a deep sense of social concern, and that the Dawu Group he founded is a model of civil self-governance. Hu Ping said, “Sun Dawu embodies the value, significance is not lower than Ma Yun, in my opinion, but also higher.”
Yu Ping, a legal scholar and independent commentator, said that the Sun Dawu case has the significance of a wind vane, which plays a role in shaking the tiger to other similar private enterprises in China.
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