BEIJING, Nov. 21 (UPI) -- Activist and journalist Gao Yu retracted her confession in her Beijing trial Friday, denying she leaked state secrets.
Gao, 70, was arrested in April, charged with giving a stolen internal Communist Party document to a foreign website. Although she admitted the charge on state television, two weeks after her arrest, she used her trial to redact the confession, claiming it was made under unspecified duress.
Her lawyer, Mo Shaoping, said her son, Zhao Meg, was charged with the same crime, disappeared in April and is being monitored, currently on an escorted "holiday" in China's Hebei province.
Gao's trial, which began Friday, is closed to the public. She faces life imprisonment; defendants in similar trials are overwhelmingly found guilty.
Although it has not been revealed which document Gao allegedly leaked, Chinese authorities speculate is was an internal party memo known as "Document No. 9," in which Communist Party members are advised to guard against Western ideals, including "Western-style journalism" and "universal values."
In a separate legal matter, Ilham Tohti was advised his appeal after conviction for advocating "separatism" was denied. Tohti, 44, an economics professor and the foremost advocate for China's Muslim Uighur minority, received a life sentence in September.
