As Xu Zhiyong sat quietly in a Beijing trial room, the scene outside was anything but calm. Police had declared the area surrounding the Beijing Number 1 Intermediate People’s Court an “interview-free zone”. Plain-clothes officers pulled, punched and kicked broadcast journalists, making for dramatic live television footage. Supporters of the softly spoken lawyer’s self-styled New Citizens’ Movement were dragged off to waiting police vans.
China’s capital had not seen a trial like it since 2009, when Liu Xiaobo was sentenced to 11 years in prison for subversion. The dissident scholar was subsequently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, a decision that enraged Beijing and confirmed his place as China’s Solzhenitsyn.
On Wednesday morning Mr Xu’s international standing was similarly elevated. The trial will be a test of the Chinese Communist party’s pledge to enact bold new reforms, including a promise to protect people’s rights by “upholding the constitution and laws”. Like American civil rights activists in the 1950s and 1960s, Mr Xu is demanding that the law be taken at face value and applied to all citizens equally. It is a dream that, if realised, would profoundly change China.