A Chinese dissident who was arrested after campaigning for the parents of children killed in the Sichuan earthquake will stand trial on state secret charges, his wife and lawyer said.
The abrupt announcement that Huang Qi, 45, would be tried came nearly eight months after he was detained as authorities silenced growing criticism about fragile school buildings that collapsed on children in the May 12 quake.
"This morning (Monday) I received a phone call from the court… to ask me to tell Huang Qi's lawyers that he will be put on trial Tuesday for illegal possession of state secrets," Huang's wife Zeng Li told AFP by phone Monday.
Later, Huang's lawyer Mo Shaoping told AFP the district court in Chengdu, capital of the southwestern province of Sichuan, had agreed to push back the trial date after attorneys protested they had not been given time to prepare.
"According to law, the court must warn the defence side three days before," he said, adding that he did not know when the trial would begin.
Huang was detained in Chengdu on June 10 — about a month after the 8.0-magnitude earthquake left more than 87,000 people dead or missing.
Huang, a long-time rights activist who used the Internet to publicise his causes, had started to campaign for parents whose children were killed when their schools collapsed in the quake.
About 7,000 schools were destroyed, often as nearby buildings stood firm, and relatives of the dead children initially spoke out loudly against the graft they believed led to shoddy construction.
"Up to now, we still have not been able to see the (specific) charges" against Huang, Mo said.
Huang had already been jailed between 2000 and 2005 on charges of subversion after he set up a website that independently investigated government corruption and advocated democracy.
After his release, Huang resumed his rights work and opened the Tianwang Human Rights Centre, which claims to be the only non-government human rights organisation in China.
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