No Verdict In China Free Press Trial

A researcher for The New York Times detained in China pleaded not guilty Friday to charges of leaking state secrets and fraud in a case activists say underscores Beijing's continued rejection of press freedom despite free-market reforms and increased openness.

A closed-door trial for Zhao Yan, 44, a Chinese researcher held by Chinese authorities for the past 22 months, ended Friday after one day with no verdict, his lawyer Mo Shaoping said.

Zhao's other attorney Guan Anping said he could not discuss the charges his client faced nor the evidence produced in court as the information was classified.

The lawyers sought to have Zhao released on bail, but the court rejected the application, Guan said.

It was not immediately clear when there would be a verdict, the lawyers said. Zhao faces a prison term of 10 years if found guilty of disclosing state secrets.

Zhao, a hard-charging investigative reporter for several Chinese publications before joining the Times as a researcher, was detained in 2004 after the newspaper reported on Chinese leader Jiang Zemin's plans to relinquish his post as head of the military.

The government has not released details of the case.

China is believed to be the world's leading jailer of journalists, with at least 42 behind bars, many on charges of violating vague security or subversion laws.

Human rights activists said Zhao's case highlights the Chinese government's use of vaguely defined state secrecy laws to muzzle the media — a tactic that sends a strong signal China is unwilling to loosen its grip on the press.

"We've seen state secrets charges use very often on people that the Chinese government want to silence," said Nicholas Bequelin, a Hong Kong-based researcher for Human Rights Watch.

Bequelin said China's state secrecy laws were out of step with minimum international standards in that they were vaguely defined and broadly encompassing.

"This is a test case for China's legal and media communities that will indicate whether the leadership of Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao agrees to bring the state within the fold of legality," Bequelin said. "Or whether they continue to place the party and the functioning of the state beyond the reach of the court."

New York University law professor Jerome Cohen said China was seeking to make an example of Zhao Yan as a warning to other journalists.

"They're trying to make a vehicle of his case to show journalists and others that they are at their peril if they try to report in a way that's normal in most countries," said Cohen, who was also in Beijing as a legal adviser to The Times.

"This is not a way that a major country that's about to hold the Olympics should act," Cohen said.

Zhao's case was dismissed in March ahead of a visit by Chinese President Hu Jintao to Washington, an apparent effort to help smooth over U.S.-Chinese relations.

But Zhao was never released from police custody and prosecutors said just days after the initial case was dropped that they were launching a new investigation into his case.

Zhao's case has also taken on a political dimension, with the Times' lobbying the Bush administration and other U.S. political figures to press for the researcher's release.

"Under China's constitution, people are supposed to enjoy freedom of speech, but this has never been clearly defined," said Li Datong, a former editor of Freezing Point, a weekly supplement in the ruling Communist Party's China Youth Daily newspaper.

Li was removed from his post in February after printing an article questioning the official approach to history.

"The vagueness gives some officials a lot of room maneuver and this is a situation that should not be allowed to continue," said Li, who still works for the China Youth Daily but has become a surprisingly vocal critic of China's heavy-handed press controls.

On Thursday the New York-based press rights group, the Committee to Protect Journalists, issued a statement calling for Zhao's release.

Another New York-based group, Human Rights in China, also issued a similar statement, decrying Zhao's long-term detention without trial as unlawful.