China has secretly put on trial for subversion an Internet publisher who posted information on the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, a New York-based journalists' rights group said today.
Huang Qi was tried on August 14th by the Chengdu Intermediate Court in the southwestern province of Sichuan, the Committee to Protect Journalists said in a statement.
Family members were not allowed to attend and no verdict or sentencing date was released, the group said.
It said Huang's wife went to the court but was stopped from entering.
She photographed her husband entering the court but her film was confiscated, the group said.
Court authorities in Chengdu were not available for comment.
Huang published the website, www.6-4tianwang.com, which contained articles about pro-democracy activism in China, the banned spiritual group Falun Gong and the independence movement in the northwestern region of Xinjiang.
He was arrested on June 3rd last year, the eve of the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown.
Authorities had to postpone his trial in February after he collapsed in court, according to rights groups and diplomats.
The trial was delayed again, the statement said, in "an apparent effort to avoid international attention to human rights abuses during Beijing's bid to host the 2008 Olympic Games."
Beijing won the right to state the Games despite Western criticism of its human rights record.
Huang's site has been hosted by a US server since April 2000 and remains accessible outside China.
Huang's case has drawn international interest because it highlights China's struggle to promote the Internet for commercial purposes while trying to control political content.
China routinely blocks Web sites of Western media outlets, human rights groups, Tibetan exiles and other sources of information it deems politically sensitive or harmful.