National Secret

The official notification of the police's decision to not allow the suspect meet with his lawyer, issued by the Police Bureau of Mawei District, Fuzhou, the capital city of Fujian Province. Criminal case denial note No. 001 of 2009.

By Criminal Prosecuation Act, 96-2, because the slander case is related to national secret, it is decided to deny lawyer Lin Hongnan's request to meet his client the suspect Wu Huamin.

Five Chinese netizens were arrested and charged for leaking national secret after they forwarded a post which detailed a 25 years old woman was gang-raped by police of Minqing County, Fujian Province.

Yan Xiaoling was gang-raped by a group of eight people, including several cops and state prosecutors between February 10 and 11 of 2008. Her mother was shown a dead body in the county hospital on the evening of 2/11/2008. She was naked when her body was sent to the hospital. Detail description by the medical personnel showed she had not only been gang-raped, but also raped after her death.

Later, father of one of the guys admitted to a relative that his son was involved.

However, local police refused to press charge. After destroying the body, the police announced that Yan died of ectopic pregnancy for 6 months. Yan's mother questioned the conclusion because Yan had menstrual came one month ago.

Yan's mother appealed the police's conclusion and started complaining to higher authorities ever since. She posted the case to the Internet on June 23, 2009, and some netizens forwarded her post to other forums. Five people were arrested.

After waiting for 7 days, yesterday their lawyers were notified by Police Bureau of Mawei District of Fuzhou city, Fujian Province. they would not be allowed to meet their clients because the case was about national secret. Reporters are also banned from covering the case also citing national secret.

One of the lawyers, Mr. Liu Xiaoyuan of Beijing, questioned the logic of declaring the case a national secret. The netizens were charged with slander, which was regulated in the civil code. Nevertheless, they were prosecuted by the police as a criminal case.