BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese court threw out a fraud charge against a disabled lawyer in a small victory for the country's battered rights movement on Friday, a day after the United States pressed Beijing to improve its human rights record.
Ni Yulan, who has fought for the rights of people forced out of their homes to make way for development, will however remain in prison to serve her other conviction for causing a disturbance.
The decision, announced by the Beijing First Intermediate People's Court, means Ni will have her prison time reduced by two months.
Ni and her husband, Dong Jiqin, were detained in April 2011 and later convicted of the charges. She was given a total of two years and eight months in jail.
Activists contend the charges were trumped up in an effort to silence the couple.
Prosecutors said previously that Ni had swindled a person out of 5,000 yuan ($780) for "fabricating her identity as a lawyer".
The court ruled that the contributions to Ni were donations, the couple's lawyer Cheng Hai told Reuters by telephone.
"We've won partially," Cheng said. "It wasn't easy. But if everyone persists, there's still hope. The path of the rule of law, no matter how tough it is, is still improving."
The court did not answer telephone calls seeking comment.
Ni's imprisonment underscores Chinese leaders' increasing intolerance of dissent ahead of a tricky generational transition of power at the end of the year, when Vice President Xi Jinping almost certainly will be anointed to take over from Hu Jintao.
On Thursday, the United States urged China to address its "deteriorating" rights record, citing Ni's case among others.
Cheng said Ni told the court in a five-minute speech she was not guilty. Ni, who had to be wheeled into the courtroom for her hearing last December in a stretcher and had to be hooked up to an oxygen tank, was able to sit upright for two and a half hours, Cheng said.
"In prison, she said the nutrition isn't very good," Cheng said. "She's terribly malnourished."
Ni's imprisonment underscores Chinese leaders' increasing intolerance of dissent ahead of a tricky generational transition of power at the end of the year, when Vice President Xi Jinping almost certainly will be anointed to take over from Hu Jintao.
On Thursday, the United States urged China to address its "deteriorating" rights record, citing Ni's case among others.
About a dozen diplomats gathered outside the courthouse to wait for the verdict, along with a heavy security presence.
Ni's appeal comes a week after a Chinese court upheld a $2.4 million fine for tax evasion against the country's most famous dissident, Ai Weiwei, in a case that critics accuse Beijing of using to muzzle the outspoken artist.
Prosecutors alleged that Ni, who is disabled and wheelchair-bound, and Dong had "willfully occupied" a room at a hotel, according to the court spokesman. Ni had previously called it a "black jail", where they were forced to stay in 2010 after their home was demolished in 2008.
A "black jail" is an informal detention site, such as a hotel or government guesthouse, used to hold protesters and petitioners without resorting to legal procedures.
Ni was left disabled by a police beating in 2002 after filming the forced demolition of a client's home and was then jailed. Ni was again jailed and beaten by police in 2008 for defending the rights of people evicted from their homes to make way for Beijing's 2008 Summer Olympics.
In February 2011 , then-U.S. ambassador to China Jon Huntsman visited Ni in the hotel, where she said water and electricity had been cut off by the authorities.
($1 = 6.3841 Chinese yuan)
(Additional reporting by Mark Chisholm, Editing by Ben Blanchard and Sanjeev Miglani)
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/china-dismisses-case-against-lawyer-tiny-win-rights-080841582.html
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