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Ni said the authorities were trying to silence her because in trying to defend those who had been wrongly evicted from their homes, she had found evidence of wrongdoing by Beijing officials in lucrative land deals. "When they were making me crawl in prison, they were basically trying to kill me so that they can silence me," Ni said in the 2010 interview. "Isn't it just because I'm trying to tell the truth?" In a sign of the government's sensitivity over the case, Thursday's trial took place under heavy security. Dozens of uniformed police sealed off and patrolled roads around the courthouse, rounding up journalists and about a dozen diplomats from the United States and Europe and taking them to a small office across from the building. Ni told the court she was not guilty, said her lawyer Cheng Hai, outside the courthouse. Cheng spoke only briefly as he was being pushed away from reporters by plainclothes men who did not identify themselves. Dong said she was happy to see her parents for the first time in the nearly nine months but she was not optimistic about the outcome of the trial, citing the couple's lengthy detention and the heavy security presence at the courthouse. "This is definitely not a normal trial procedure, so I feel the risk of conviction is high," she said.
[Associated
Press;
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