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Wikipedia

Show trial

March 20, 2023

Not to be confused with Court show, Mock trial, or Showtrial (TV series).

A show trial is a public trial in which the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt or innocence of the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal the presentation of both the accusation and the verdict to the public so they will serve as both an impressive example and a warning to other would-be dissidents or transgressors.[2]

Show trials tend to be retributive rather than corrective and they are also conducted for propagandistic purposes.[3] When aimed at individuals on the basis of protected classes or characteristics, such trials are examples of political persecution. The term was first recorded in 1928.[4]

China

During the Land Reform Movement, between 1 and 2 million landlords were executed as counterrevolutionaries during the early years of Communist China.[5] After the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, show trials were given to "rioters and counter-revolutionaries" involved in the protests and the subsequent military massacre.[6]

Chinese Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo was given a show trial in 2009.[7] Chinese writer and dissident Ma Jian argued that Gu Kailai, the wife of purged Communist Chinese leader Bo Xilai, was given a show trial in 2012.[8][better source needed]

After a drop in acquittal rates in the 2000s, in 2014, the Chinese judicial system reached a conviction rate of 90%.[9][10] In a report to the National People's Congress, Supreme People's Court Justice Zhou Qiang said "The rulings in some cases were not fair... which harmed the interests of the litigants and undermined the credibility of the law."[10]

Japan

Japan has a conviction rate of over 99.8%, even higher than contemporary authoritarian regimes.[11] Various human rights organizations alleged that the high conviction rate is due to the rampant use of conviction solely based on forced confessions, including those that are innocent.[12] Confessions are often obtained after long periods of questioning by police, as those arrested may be held for up to 23 days without trial. During this time the suspect is in detention and is prevented from contacting family or even a lawyer.[13]

Studies have shown that Japanese judges can be penalized if they rule in ways the judicial office dislikes, and thus face biased incentives to convict. Using data on the careers and opinions of 321 Japanese judges, it was found that judges who engage in acquittals experience less rewarding careers.[11]

Prominent cases

In October 2007, the BBC published a feature giving examples and an overview of forced confessions in Japan.[14] In the Shibushi Case [ja], 13 people were arrested and interrogated, but were found innocent in court after the presiding judge ruled that those who confessed did so "in despair while going through marathon questioning."[14][15] In a different case, a man named Hiroshi Yanagihara was convicted in November 2002 of rape and attempted rape after a forced confession and apparent identification by the victim, despite an alibi based on phone records. He was only cleared five years later in October 2007 when the true culprit was arrested for an unrelated crime.[16] These two cases damaged the international credibility of the Japanese police.[17]

The issue of the extremely high conviction rates were brought into international scrutiny once again after the former CEO of Nissan, Carlos Ghosn, was arrested in 2018 over allegations of false accounting.[18] Ghosn subsequently fled Japan on 30 December 2019 while awaiting trial, and brought the very topic up in an interview as to why he had to flee the country – stating he will never have a right to fair trial.[19] In a statement, Ghosn stated that he would "no longer be held hostage by a rigged Japanese justice system where guilt is presumed, discrimination is rampant and basic human rights are denied."[20] At a subsequent press conference, Ghosn added that "I did not escape justice. I fled injustice and persecution, political persecution".[21]

Middle East

Judiciary in countries such as Bahrain and Saudi Arabia is completely dependent on the wishes and wants of the governing regimes. During their show trials, Human rights activists and opposition figures are routinely given harsh verdicts in predetermined rulings by the kangaroo courts.[22][23][24]

Egypt

Main article: 2014 Minya court rulings

The United Nations human rights office[25] and various NGOs[26] expressed "deep alarm" after an Egyptian Minya Criminal Court sentenced 529 people to death in a single hearing on 25 March 2014. The judgment was condemned as a violation of international law.[27] By May 2014, approximately 16,000 people (and as high as more than 40,000 by one independent count)[28] have been imprisoned after the 2013 Egyptian coup d'état in July 2013.[29] Egypt's ousted President Mohamed Morsi was sentenced to death on 16 May 2015, along with 120 others.[30]

Turkey

Main article: 2016–17 purges in Turkey

After the failed coup attempt in 2016, the government of Turkey blamed the Gülen movement for the coup and authorities have arrested thousands of soldiers and judges.[31] This was followed by the dismissal, detention or suspension of over 160,000 officials.[32]

Soviet Union

Main article: Moscow trials
 
Prosecutor General Andrey Vyshinsky (centre) reading the 1937 indictment against Karl Radek during the 2nd Moscow trial

As early as 1922 Lenin advocated staging several "model trials" ("показательный процесс", literally "demonstrative trial", "a process showing an example") in Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine.[33]

Show trials became common during Joseph Stalin's political repressions,[citation needed] such as the Moscow Trials of the Great Purge period (1937–38). Such trials paralleled the institution of self-criticism within Communist Party cadres and Soviet society.[34]

The Soviet authorities staged the actual trials meticulously. If defendants refused to "cooperate"—i.e., to admit guilt for their alleged and mostly fabricated crimes—they did not go on public trial, but suffered execution nonetheless. This happened, for example during the prosecution of the so-called Labour Peasant Party [ru], a "party" invented in the late 1920s by the OGPU, which, in particular, assigned the notable economist Alexander Chayanov (1888–1937, arrested in 1930) to it.

Some public evidence of actual events during the Moscow Trials came to the West through the Dewey Commission (1937). After the collapse of the Soviet Union (1991), more information became available. This discredited the New York Times reporter Walter Duranty,[citation needed] who claimed at the time that these trials were actually fair.

Eastern Europe

 
Captain Witold Pilecki, former prisoner at Auschwitz during a show trial conducted by communist authorities in Poland in 1948
See also: Eastern Bloc politics

Following some dissent within ruling communist parties throughout the Eastern Bloc, especially after the 1948 Tito–Stalin split,[35][36] several party purges occurred, with several hundred thousand members purged in several countries.[35][37] In addition to rank-and-file member purges, prominent communists were purged, with some subjected to public show trials.[37] These were more likely to be instigated, and sometimes orchestrated, by the Kremlin or even Stalin himself, as he had done in the earlier Moscow Trials.[38]

Such high-ranking party show trials included those of Koçi Xoxe in Albania and Traicho Kostov in Bulgaria, who were purged and arrested.[36] After Kostov was executed, Bulgarian leaders sent Stalin a telegram thanking him for the help.[38] In Romania, Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu, Ana Pauker and Vasile Luca were arrested, with Pătrășcanu being executed.[37] The Soviets generally directed show trial methods throughout the Eastern Bloc, including a procedure in which confessions and evidence from leading witnesses could be extracted by any means, including threatening to torture the witnesses' wives and children.[39] The higher-ranking the party member, generally the more harsh the torture that was inflicted upon him.[39] For the show trial of Hungarian Interior Minister János Kádár, who one year earlier had attempted to force a confession of Rajk in his show trial, regarding "Vladimir" the questioner of Kádár:[39]

Vladimir had but one argument: blows. They had begun to beat Kádár. They had smeared his body with mercury to prevent his pores from breathing. He had been writhing on the floor when a newcomer had arrived. The newcomer was Vladimir's father, Mihály Farkas. Kádár was raised from the ground. Vladimir stepped close. Two henchmen pried Kádár's teeth apart, and the colonel, negligently, as if this were the most natural thing in the world, urinated into his mouth.

The evidence was often not just non-existent but absurd,[clarification needed] with Hungarian George Paloczi-Horváth's party interrogators claiming "We knew all the time—we have it here in writing—that you met professor Szentgyörgyi not in Istanbul, but in Constantinople."[40] In another case, the Hungarian ÁVH secret police also condemned another party member as a Nazi accomplice with a document that had been previously displayed in a glass cabinet at the Institute of the Working Class Movement as an example of a Gestapo forgery.[40] The trials themselves were "shows", with each participant having to learn a script and conduct repeated rehearsals before the performance.[40] In the Slánský trial in Czechoslovakia, when the judge skipped one of the scripted questions, the better-rehearsed Slánský answered the one which should have been asked.[40]

Belarus

As of 2022, court cases in Belarus are often scheduled ten minutes apart from one another[41] and can conclude in as little three minutes,[42] and have been criticized for being "not a court".[43] Consistently from 2016 through 2020, trials resulting in a guilty verdict occurred at a frequency of 99.7% and 99.8%.[44]

Yugoslavia

Main article: Trial of Mihailović et al.

In 1946, Draža Mihailović and a number of other prominent figures of the Chetnik movement during World War II were tried for high treason and war crimes committed during WWII. The trial opened in the presence of about 60 foreign journalists. Mihailović and ten others were sentenced to death by a firing squad (two in absentia); the others in the process were convicted to penalties ranging from 18 months to 20 years in prison.

In 2015, a Serbian court invalidated Mihailović's conviction. The court held that it had been a Communist political show trial that was controlled by the government. The court concluded that Mihailović had not received a fair trial. Mihailović was, therefore, fully rehabilitated.[45][46][47]

Hungary

Stalin's NKVD emissary coordinated with Hungarian General Secretary Mátyás Rákosi and his ÁVH head the way the show trial of Hungarian Minister of Interior László Rajk should go, and he was later executed.[38]

Czechoslovakia

The Rajk trials in Hungary led Moscow to warn Czechoslovakia's parties that enemy agents had penetrated even high into party ranks, and when a puzzled Rudolf Slánský and Klement Gottwald inquired what they could do, Stalin's NKVD agents arrived to help prepare subsequent trials.

First, these trials focused on people outside the Czechoslovak Communist party. General Heliodor Píka was arrested without a warrant in early May 1948 and accused of espionage and high treason,[48] damaging the interests of the Czechoslovak Republic and the Soviet Union, and undermining the ability of the state to defend itself, Píka was not allowed to present a defence, and no witnesses were called. He was sentenced to death and hanged. During the Prague Spring of 1968, Píka's case was reopened at the request of Milan Píka (son of Heliodor) and the elder Píka's lawyer, and a military tribunal declared Heliodor Píka innocent of all charges.[49]

Milada Horáková, a Czech politician focused on social issues and women's rights, who was jailed during the German occupation for her political activity,[50] was accused of leading a conspiracy to commit treason and espionage at the behest of the United States, Great Britain, France and Yugoslavia. Evidence of the alleged conspiracy included Horáková's presence at a meeting of political figures from the National Socialist, Social Democrat and People's parties, in September 1948, held to discuss their response to the new political situation in Czechoslovakia. She was also accused of maintaining contacts with Czechoslovak political figures in exile in the West. The trial of Horáková and twelve of her colleagues began on 31 May 1950[51] and he State's prosecutors were led by Dr. Josef Urválek and included Ludmila Brožová-Polednová. The trial proceedings were carefully orchestrated with confessions of guilt secured from the accused, though a recording of the event, discovered in 2005, revealed Horáková's defence of her political ideals.[52] Horáková was sentenced to death, along with three co-defendants (Jan Buchal, Oldřich Pecl, and Záviš Kalandra), on 8 June 1950. Many prominent figures in the West, notably Albert Einstein, Winston Churchill and Eleanor Roosevelt, petitioned for her life, but the sentences were confirmed. She was executed by hanging in Prague's Pankrác Prison on 27 June 1950.

The trials then turned to the communist party itself (Slánský trial). In November 1952 Rudolf Slánský and 13 other high-ranking Communist bureaucrats (Bedřich Geminder, Ludvík Frejka, Josef Frank, Vladimír Clementis, Bedřich Reicin, Karel Šváb, Rudolf Margolius, Otto Šling, André Simone, Artur London, Vavro Hajdů and Evžen Löbl), 10 of whom were Jews, were arrested and charged with being Titoists and Zionists, official USSR rhetoric having turned against Zionism. Party rhetoric asserted that Slánský was spying as part of an international western capitalist conspiracy to undermine socialism and that punishing him would avenge the Nazi murders of Czech communists Jan Šverma and Julius Fučík during World War II. The trial of the 14 national leaders began on 20 November 1952, in the Senate of the State Court, with the prosecutor being Josef Urválek. It lasted eight days. It was notable for its strong anti-Semitic overtones.[citation needed] All were found guilty, with three being sentenced to life imprisonment while the rest were sentenced to death. Slánský was hanged at Pankrác Prison on 3 December 1952. His body was cremated and the ashes were scattered on an icy road outside of Prague.

Romania

Main article: Trial of Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu

As the end of the 1989 Romanian Revolution neared, General Secretary of the Communist Party Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife Elena were condemned to death and executed by firing squad after a Stalinist-style trial in a kangaroo court.[53]

Western Europe

Nazi Germany

Between 1933 and 1945, Nazi Germany established a large number of Sondergerichte that were frequently used to prosecute those hostile to the regime. The People's Court was a kangaroo court established in 1934 to handle political crimes after several of the defendants at the Reichstag fire Trial were acquitted. Between 1933 and 1945, an estimated 12,000 Germans were killed on the orders of the "special courts" set up by the Nazi regime.[54]

South America

Brazil

The trial of former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was marred by allegations of lack of impartiality and political bias due to proximity of the trial and Lula's arrest to the 2018 Brazilian general election. Federal judge Sergio Moro, who would later become minister of justice in during the early stage of Jair Bolsonaro's presidency, was frequently accused of speeding up corruption charges against Lula in a clear attempt at preventing Lula from running to office again and harm public trust on the Workers' Party. In early 2019, news website The Intercept published leaked messages from Telegram that confirmed the political bias allegations and Moro's speeding up of charges against Lula with the clear intent at preventing him from running for office in 2018.[55] In 2019 Lula was released from prison after a Supreme Federal Court ruling that declared that defendants could only be arrested after all appeals to higher courts were exhausted.[56]

In 2021 Lula was acquitted of most charges after Supreme Federal Court judges confirmed that Lula's trial was unfair and politically biased.[57][58]

Nevertheless, there are still ongoing investigations to establish corruption and money bribery charges, linked to Odebrecht Case.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ "German Resistance Memorial Center – Biographie". gdw-berlin.de. Retrieved 30 August 2020.
  2. ^ OED (2014):
  3. ^ "SHOW TRIAL | definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary". dictionary.cambridge.org. Retrieved 19 June 2019.
  4. ^ "Definition of SHOW TRIAL". www.merriam-webster.com. Retrieved 19 June 2019.
  5. ^ Busky, Donald F. (2002). Communism in History and Theory. Greenwood Publishing Group. p.11.
  6. ^ Show Trials in China: After Tiananmen Square, Mark Findlay, Journal of Law and Society, Vol. 16, No. 3 (Autumn, 1989), pp. 352–359. Published by Wiley-Blackwell
  7. ^ "Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo jailed for subversion". BBC News. 25 December 2009.
  8. ^ China's Show Trial of the Century, Ma Jian, Project Syndicate, 20 August 2012
  9. ^ "China's low acquittal rates: interesting statistics". The China Collection. 5 May 2020. Retrieved 3 September 2021.
  10. ^ a b McCoy, Terrence (3 November 2014). "China scored 99.9 percent conviction rate last year". The Washington Post. Retrieved 9 March 2021.
  11. ^ a b Ramseyer, Mark; Rasmusen, Eric (January 2001). "Why is the Japanese Conviction Rate so High?". The Journal of Legal Studies. 30 (1): 53–88. doi:10.1086/468111. S2CID 55632179.
  12. ^ Oi, Mariko (2 January 2013). "Japan crime: Why do innocent people confess?". BBC News. Retrieved 11 June 2022.
  13. ^ Mac, Ryo (11 February 2018). "The Whole Story on Japan's 99% Conviction Rate, and the Corruption that Follows". Skeptikai. Retrieved 11 June 2022.
  14. ^ a b Hogg, Chris (29 October 2007). "'Forced confessions' in Japan". bbc.com. BBC. Retrieved 11 June 2022.
  15. ^ Onishi, Norimitsu (12 September 2007). . iht.com. International Herald Tribune. Archived from the original on 12 September 2007. Retrieved 11 June 2022.
  16. ^ "Court acquits man but kept lid on forced confession". The Japan Times. 11 October 2007. Retrieved 11 June 2022.
  17. ^ . Asahi Shimbun. 25 January 2008. Archived from the original on 27 January 2008. Retrieved 26 February 2008.
  18. ^ Truong, Alice (10 December 2018). "Carlos Ghosn is up against Japan's 99.9% conviction rate". Quartz. Retrieved 11 June 2022.
  19. ^ Cosgrove, Elly Cosgrove; Lee, Yen Nee (31 December 2019). "Fugitive ex-Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn says he fled Japan to escape 'injustice'". CNBC. Retrieved 11 June 2022.
  20. ^ Issam, Abdallah; Kelly, Tim (30 December 2019). "Ghosn says he escaped 'injustice' in Japan; Lebanon calls arrival a private matter". Reuters. Retrieved 11 June 2022.
  21. ^ Fuchs, Erin (11 January 2020). "'Pretty much everybody prosecuted gets convicted:' Carlos Ghosn exposes Japan to new scrutiny". finance.yahoo.com. Retrieved 11 June 2022.
  22. ^ "UN Experts: Mass Trial in Bahrain Violated Human Rights – Torture, Enforced Disappearances, and Unfair Trials". 7 January 2019.
  23. ^ "Doctors in the dock in Bahrain's show trial". www.theaustralian.com.au. 21 June 2011.
  24. ^ "Saudi Arabia: 14 protesters facing execution after unfair trials". Amnesty International.
  25. ^ Cumming-Bruce, Nick (25 March 2014). "U.N. Expresses Alarm Over Egyptian Death Sentences". The New York Times.
  26. ^ "Egypt: Shocking Death Sentences Follow Sham Trial – Human Rights Watch". hrw.org. 25 March 2014.
  27. ^ . Washington Post. 24 March 2014. Archived from the original on 25 March 2014.
  28. ^ A coronation flop: President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi fails to bring enough voters to the ballot box, economist.com.
  29. ^ "Egypt sentences to death 529 supporters of Mohamed Morsi". The Guardian. 24 March 2014.
  30. ^ Hendawi, Hamza (16 May 2015). . Archived from the original on 26 May 2015. Retrieved 22 May 2015.
  31. ^ "The Scale of Turkey's Purge Is Nearly Unprecedented". The New York Times. 2 August 2016. Retrieved 7 August 2016.
  32. ^ Turkey fires 3,900 in second post-referendum purge, Reuters.com, 29 April 2017
  33. ^ Chase, William (2005). "12: Stalin as producer: the Moscow show trials and the construction of mortal threats". In Davies, Sarah; Harris, James (eds.). Stalin: A New History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 226–227. ISBN 9781139446631. Retrieved 25 September 2018. Lenin appreciated the power of show trials and was keen to use them [...]. [...] In a February 1922 letter [...] Lenin recommended 'staging a series of model trials' that would administer 'quick and forceful repression' in 'Moscow, Piter [Petrograd], Kharkov and several other important centres'.
  34. ^ Priestland, David (February 2007). Stalinism and the Politics of Mobilization: Ideas, Power, and Terror in Inter-war Russia. Oxford: Oxford University Press (published 2007). p. 167. ISBN 9780199245130. Retrieved 4 April 2021. The characters who embodied these sins then confessed in a 'self-criticism' session. This type of political theatre obviously had a great deal in common with the political show trial and with rituals of 'self-criticism' in the party .
  35. ^ a b Bideleux & Jeffries 2007, p. 477
  36. ^ a b Crampton 1997, p. 261
  37. ^ a b c Crampton 1997, p. 262
  38. ^ a b c Crampton 1997, p. 263
  39. ^ a b c Crampton 1997, p. 264
  40. ^ a b c d Crampton 1997, p. 265
  41. ^ "Журналиста Артема Майорова будут судить за "мелкое хулиганство"". Все новости Беларуси. Retrieved 21 March 2022.
  42. ^ "Судейский скорострел. Белорусский суд рассмотрел "протестное" дело за 3 минуты". Городские порталы Беларуси – Govorim.by. Retrieved 21 March 2022.
  43. ^ "Правозащитник о деле журналиста Дмитрия Лупача: "Заседание длилось три минуты. Это не суд"". belsat.eu (in Russian). Retrieved 21 March 2022.
  44. ^ "В Беларуси в 2020 году 99,7% приговоров были обвинительными". belsat.eu (in Russian). Retrieved 21 March 2022.
  45. ^ "Court rehabilitates WW2-era Chetnik leader Draza Mihailovic - English - on B92.net". B92.net. Retrieved 4 January 2019.
  46. ^ "Serbia Rehabilitates WWII Chetnik Leader Mihailovic". www.balkaninsight.com. 14 May 2015. Retrieved 4 January 2019.
  47. ^ ""Draza Mihailovic rehabilitated", May 14, 2015, InSerbia". 18 May 2015.
  48. ^ Hauner, Milan (Winter 2001–2002) (20 July 2011). "Crime and Punishment in Prague: The Strange Case of Karel Vaš and Gen. Heliodor Píka" (PDF). (PDF) from the original on 20 July 2011. Retrieved 25 June 2020.
  49. ^ "Remembering General Heliodor Píka, first victim of the communist show trials". Radio Prague International. 19 June 2009. Retrieved 25 June 2020.
  50. ^ . old.radio.cz. Archived from the original on 27 June 2020. Retrieved 25 June 2020.
  51. ^ "Dr. Horáková Milada a spol. – Ústav pro studium totalitních režimů". www.ustrcr.cz. Retrieved 25 June 2020.
  52. ^ "Young director to bring story of Milada Horakova to silver screen". Radio Prague International. 6 April 2007. Retrieved 25 June 2020.
  53. ^ Nicolae și Elena Ceaușescu: „Împreună am luptat, să murim împreună!" Adevărul, 19 December 2009.
  54. ^ Peter Hoffmann "The History of the German Resistance, 1933–1945"p.xiii
  55. ^ Reuters[dead link]
  56. ^ "Brazil's former president Lula walks free from prison after supreme court ruling". TheGuardian.com. 8 November 2019.
  57. ^ "Lula: Brazil ex-president's corruption convictions annulled". BBC News. 9 March 2021.
  58. ^ "Brazil: Supreme Court rules judge who convicted Lula was 'biased' | DW | 23.03.2021". Deutsche Welle.

References

  • Bideleux, Robert; Jeffries, Ian (2007), A History of Eastern Europe: Crisis and Change, Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-36626-7
  • Crampton, R. J. (1997), Eastern Europe in the twentieth century and after, Routledge, ISBN 0-415-16422-2
  • Hodos, George H. Show Trials: Stalinist Purges in Eastern Europe, 1948–1954. New York, Westport (Conn.), and London: Praeger, 1987.
  • Showtrials Website 18 November 2018 at the Wayback Machine of the European Union
  • Balázs Szalontai, Show trials. In: Ruud van Dijk et al. (eds.), Encyclopedia of the Cold War (London and New York: Routledge, 2008), pp. 783–786. Downloadable at academia.edu

External links

  Media related to Show trials at Wikimedia Commons

March 20, 2023
show, trial, confused, with, court, show, mock, trial, showtrial, series, show, trial, public, trial, which, judicial, authorities, have, already, determined, guilt, innocence, defendant, actual, trial, only, goal, presentation, both, accusation, verdict, publ. Not to be confused with Court show Mock trial or Showtrial TV series A show trial is a public trial in which the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt or innocence of the defendant The actual trial has as its only goal the presentation of both the accusation and the verdict to the public so they will serve as both an impressive example and a warning to other would be dissidents or transgressors 2 People s Court trial of Adolf Reichwein Nazi Germany 1944 1 Show trials tend to be retributive rather than corrective and they are also conducted for propagandistic purposes 3 When aimed at individuals on the basis of protected classes or characteristics such trials are examples of political persecution The term was first recorded in 1928 4 Contents 1 China 2 Japan 2 1 Prominent cases 3 Middle East 3 1 Egypt 4 Turkey 5 Soviet Union 6 Eastern Europe 6 1 Belarus 6 2 Yugoslavia 6 3 Hungary 6 4 Czechoslovakia 6 5 Romania 7 Western Europe 7 1 Nazi Germany 8 South America 8 1 Brazil 9 See also 10 Notes 11 References 12 External linksChina EditDuring the Land Reform Movement between 1 and 2 million landlords were executed as counterrevolutionaries during the early years of Communist China 5 After the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 show trials were given to rioters and counter revolutionaries involved in the protests and the subsequent military massacre 6 Chinese Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo was given a show trial in 2009 7 Chinese writer and dissident Ma Jian argued that Gu Kailai the wife of purged Communist Chinese leader Bo Xilai was given a show trial in 2012 8 better source needed After a drop in acquittal rates in the 2000s in 2014 the Chinese judicial system reached a conviction rate of 90 9 10 In a report to the National People s Congress Supreme People s Court Justice Zhou Qiang said The rulings in some cases were not fair which harmed the interests of the litigants and undermined the credibility of the law 10 Japan EditJapan has a conviction rate of over 99 8 even higher than contemporary authoritarian regimes 11 Various human rights organizations alleged that the high conviction rate is due to the rampant use of conviction solely based on forced confessions including those that are innocent 12 Confessions are often obtained after long periods of questioning by police as those arrested may be held for up to 23 days without trial During this time the suspect is in detention and is prevented from contacting family or even a lawyer 13 Studies have shown that Japanese judges can be penalized if they rule in ways the judicial office dislikes and thus face biased incentives to convict Using data on the careers and opinions of 321 Japanese judges it was found that judges who engage in acquittals experience less rewarding careers 11 Prominent cases Edit In October 2007 the BBC published a feature giving examples and an overview of forced confessions in Japan 14 In the Shibushi Case ja 13 people were arrested and interrogated but were found innocent in court after the presiding judge ruled that those who confessed did so in despair while going through marathon questioning 14 15 In a different case a man named Hiroshi Yanagihara was convicted in November 2002 of rape and attempted rape after a forced confession and apparent identification by the victim despite an alibi based on phone records He was only cleared five years later in October 2007 when the true culprit was arrested for an unrelated crime 16 These two cases damaged the international credibility of the Japanese police 17 The issue of the extremely high conviction rates were brought into international scrutiny once again after the former CEO of Nissan Carlos Ghosn was arrested in 2018 over allegations of false accounting 18 Ghosn subsequently fled Japan on 30 December 2019 while awaiting trial and brought the very topic up in an interview as to why he had to flee the country stating he will never have a right to fair trial 19 In a statement Ghosn stated that he would no longer be held hostage by a rigged Japanese justice system where guilt is presumed discrimination is rampant and basic human rights are denied 20 At a subsequent press conference Ghosn added that I did not escape justice I fled injustice and persecution political persecution 21 Middle East EditJudiciary in countries such as Bahrain and Saudi Arabia is completely dependent on the wishes and wants of the governing regimes During their show trials Human rights activists and opposition figures are routinely given harsh verdicts in predetermined rulings by the kangaroo courts 22 23 24 Egypt Edit Main article 2014 Minya court rulings The United Nations human rights office 25 and various NGOs 26 expressed deep alarm after an Egyptian Minya Criminal Court sentenced 529 people to death in a single hearing on 25 March 2014 The judgment was condemned as a violation of international law 27 By May 2014 approximately 16 000 people and as high as more than 40 000 by one independent count 28 have been imprisoned after the 2013 Egyptian coup d etat in July 2013 29 Egypt s ousted President Mohamed Morsi was sentenced to death on 16 May 2015 along with 120 others 30 Turkey EditMain article 2016 17 purges in Turkey After the failed coup attempt in 2016 the government of Turkey blamed the Gulen movement for the coup and authorities have arrested thousands of soldiers and judges 31 This was followed by the dismissal detention or suspension of over 160 000 officials 32 Soviet Union EditMain article Moscow trials Prosecutor General Andrey Vyshinsky centre reading the 1937 indictment against Karl Radek during the 2nd Moscow trial As early as 1922 Lenin advocated staging several model trials pokazatelnyj process literally demonstrative trial a process showing an example in Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine 33 Show trials became common during Joseph Stalin s political repressions citation needed such as the Moscow Trials of the Great Purge period 1937 38 Such trials paralleled the institution of self criticism within Communist Party cadres and Soviet society 34 The Soviet authorities staged the actual trials meticulously If defendants refused to cooperate i e to admit guilt for their alleged and mostly fabricated crimes they did not go on public trial but suffered execution nonetheless This happened for example during the prosecution of the so called Labour Peasant Party ru a party invented in the late 1920s by the OGPU which in particular assigned the notable economist Alexander Chayanov 1888 1937 arrested in 1930 to it Some public evidence of actual events during the Moscow Trials came to the West through the Dewey Commission 1937 After the collapse of the Soviet Union 1991 more information became available This discredited the New York Times reporter Walter Duranty citation needed who claimed at the time that these trials were actually fair Eastern Europe Edit Captain Witold Pilecki former prisoner at Auschwitz during a show trial conducted by communist authorities in Poland in 1948 See also Eastern Bloc politics Following some dissent within ruling communist parties throughout the Eastern Bloc especially after the 1948 Tito Stalin split 35 36 several party purges occurred with several hundred thousand members purged in several countries 35 37 In addition to rank and file member purges prominent communists were purged with some subjected to public show trials 37 These were more likely to be instigated and sometimes orchestrated by the Kremlin or even Stalin himself as he had done in the earlier Moscow Trials 38 Such high ranking party show trials included those of Koci Xoxe in Albania and Traicho Kostov in Bulgaria who were purged and arrested 36 After Kostov was executed Bulgarian leaders sent Stalin a telegram thanking him for the help 38 In Romania Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu Ana Pauker and Vasile Luca were arrested with Pătrășcanu being executed 37 The Soviets generally directed show trial methods throughout the Eastern Bloc including a procedure in which confessions and evidence from leading witnesses could be extracted by any means including threatening to torture the witnesses wives and children 39 The higher ranking the party member generally the more harsh the torture that was inflicted upon him 39 For the show trial of Hungarian Interior Minister Janos Kadar who one year earlier had attempted to force a confession of Rajk in his show trial regarding Vladimir the questioner of Kadar 39 Vladimir had but one argument blows They had begun to beat Kadar They had smeared his body with mercury to prevent his pores from breathing He had been writhing on the floor when a newcomer had arrived The newcomer was Vladimir s father Mihaly Farkas Kadar was raised from the ground Vladimir stepped close Two henchmen pried Kadar s teeth apart and the colonel negligently as if this were the most natural thing in the world urinated into his mouth The evidence was often not just non existent but absurd clarification needed with Hungarian George Paloczi Horvath s party interrogators claiming We knew all the time we have it here in writing that you met professor Szentgyorgyi not in Istanbul but in Constantinople 40 In another case the Hungarian AVH secret police also condemned another party member as a Nazi accomplice with a document that had been previously displayed in a glass cabinet at the Institute of the Working Class Movement as an example of a Gestapo forgery 40 The trials themselves were shows with each participant having to learn a script and conduct repeated rehearsals before the performance 40 In the Slansky trial in Czechoslovakia when the judge skipped one of the scripted questions the better rehearsed Slansky answered the one which should have been asked 40 Belarus Edit As of 2022 court cases in Belarus are often scheduled ten minutes apart from one another 41 and can conclude in as little three minutes 42 and have been criticized for being not a court 43 Consistently from 2016 through 2020 trials resulting in a guilty verdict occurred at a frequency of 99 7 and 99 8 44 Yugoslavia Edit Main article Trial of Mihailovic et al In 1946 Draza Mihailovic and a number of other prominent figures of the Chetnik movement during World War II were tried for high treason and war crimes committed during WWII The trial opened in the presence of about 60 foreign journalists Mihailovic and ten others were sentenced to death by a firing squad two in absentia the others in the process were convicted to penalties ranging from 18 months to 20 years in prison In 2015 a Serbian court invalidated Mihailovic s conviction The court held that it had been a Communist political show trial that was controlled by the government The court concluded that Mihailovic had not received a fair trial Mihailovic was therefore fully rehabilitated 45 46 47 Hungary Edit Stalin s NKVD emissary coordinated with Hungarian General Secretary Matyas Rakosi and his AVH head the way the show trial of Hungarian Minister of Interior Laszlo Rajk should go and he was later executed 38 Czechoslovakia Edit The Rajk trials in Hungary led Moscow to warn Czechoslovakia s parties that enemy agents had penetrated even high into party ranks and when a puzzled Rudolf Slansky and Klement Gottwald inquired what they could do Stalin s NKVD agents arrived to help prepare subsequent trials First these trials focused on people outside the Czechoslovak Communist party General Heliodor Pika was arrested without a warrant in early May 1948 and accused of espionage and high treason 48 damaging the interests of the Czechoslovak Republic and the Soviet Union and undermining the ability of the state to defend itself Pika was not allowed to present a defence and no witnesses were called He was sentenced to death and hanged During the Prague Spring of 1968 Pika s case was reopened at the request of Milan Pika son of Heliodor and the elder Pika s lawyer and a military tribunal declared Heliodor Pika innocent of all charges 49 Milada Horakova a Czech politician focused on social issues and women s rights who was jailed during the German occupation for her political activity 50 was accused of leading a conspiracy to commit treason and espionage at the behest of the United States Great Britain France and Yugoslavia Evidence of the alleged conspiracy included Horakova s presence at a meeting of political figures from the National Socialist Social Democrat and People s parties in September 1948 held to discuss their response to the new political situation in Czechoslovakia She was also accused of maintaining contacts with Czechoslovak political figures in exile in the West The trial of Horakova and twelve of her colleagues began on 31 May 1950 51 and he State s prosecutors were led by Dr Josef Urvalek and included Ludmila Brozova Polednova The trial proceedings were carefully orchestrated with confessions of guilt secured from the accused though a recording of the event discovered in 2005 revealed Horakova s defence of her political ideals 52 Horakova was sentenced to death along with three co defendants Jan Buchal Oldrich Pecl and Zavis Kalandra on 8 June 1950 Many prominent figures in the West notably Albert Einstein Winston Churchill and Eleanor Roosevelt petitioned for her life but the sentences were confirmed She was executed by hanging in Prague s Pankrac Prison on 27 June 1950 The trials then turned to the communist party itself Slansky trial In November 1952 Rudolf Slansky and 13 other high ranking Communist bureaucrats Bedrich Geminder Ludvik Frejka Josef Frank Vladimir Clementis Bedrich Reicin Karel Svab Rudolf Margolius Otto Sling Andre Simone Artur London Vavro Hajdu and Evzen Lobl 10 of whom were Jews were arrested and charged with being Titoists and Zionists official USSR rhetoric having turned against Zionism Party rhetoric asserted that Slansky was spying as part of an international western capitalist conspiracy to undermine socialism and that punishing him would avenge the Nazi murders of Czech communists Jan Sverma and Julius Fucik during World War II The trial of the 14 national leaders began on 20 November 1952 in the Senate of the State Court with the prosecutor being Josef Urvalek It lasted eight days It was notable for its strong anti Semitic overtones citation needed All were found guilty with three being sentenced to life imprisonment while the rest were sentenced to death Slansky was hanged at Pankrac Prison on 3 December 1952 His body was cremated and the ashes were scattered on an icy road outside of Prague Romania Edit Main article Trial of Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu As the end of the 1989 Romanian Revolution neared General Secretary of the Communist Party Nicolae Ceaușescu and his wife Elena were condemned to death and executed by firing squad after a Stalinist style trial in a kangaroo court 53 Western Europe EditThe Cadaver Synod was the posthumous trial of Pope Formosus held in 897 citation needed The Dreyfus affair was a show trial in the French Third Republic in 1894 where a Jewish captain Alfred Dreyfus was accused and convicted of spying for the German Empire and was imprisoned in Devil s Island in French Guiana where he spent nearly five years citation needed Nazi Germany Edit Between 1933 and 1945 Nazi Germany established a large number of Sondergerichte that were frequently used to prosecute those hostile to the regime The People s Court was a kangaroo court established in 1934 to handle political crimes after several of the defendants at the Reichstag fire Trial were acquitted Between 1933 and 1945 an estimated 12 000 Germans were killed on the orders of the special courts set up by the Nazi regime 54 South America EditBrazil Edit The trial of former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was marred by allegations of lack of impartiality and political bias due to proximity of the trial and Lula s arrest to the 2018 Brazilian general election Federal judge Sergio Moro who would later become minister of justice in during the early stage of Jair Bolsonaro s presidency was frequently accused of speeding up corruption charges against Lula in a clear attempt at preventing Lula from running to office again and harm public trust on the Workers Party In early 2019 news website The Intercept published leaked messages from Telegram that confirmed the political bias allegations and Moro s speeding up of charges against Lula with the clear intent at preventing him from running for office in 2018 55 In 2019 Lula was released from prison after a Supreme Federal Court ruling that declared that defendants could only be arrested after all appeals to higher courts were exhausted 56 In 2021 Lula was acquitted of most charges after Supreme Federal Court judges confirmed that Lula s trial was unfair and politically biased 57 58 Nevertheless there are still ongoing investigations to establish corruption and money bribery charges linked to Odebrecht Case See also Edit Law portal1301 trial of Bernard Saisset Paris 1415 trial of Jan Hus Konstanz 1431 trial of Joan of Arc Rouen 1649 trial of Charles I of England 1792 trial of Louis XVI during the French Revolution 1894 Trial of the Thirty Paris 1927 Trial and execution of Sacco and Vanzetti Massachusetts 1946 Trial of Mihailovic et al and execution Belgrade 1948 trial and execution of Shafiq Ades Iraq 1953 Stalinist show trial of the Krakow Curia Poland 1981 trial of the Gang of Four in China 1984 televised trial and execution of Al Sadek Hamed Al Shuwehdy in Libya 1989 Trial of Nicolae and Elena Ceaușescu and execution 2009 Iran poll protests trial of over 140 defendants The Trial of Saddam Hussein 2013 trial of the Jang Song thaek in North Korea Eastern Bloc politics NKVD troika sentencing by extrajudicial commission Political trial a criminal trial with political implications Posthumous trial Victor s justice prosecution of the defeated party s acts in a conflict by the victorious party typically in public tribunal Witch hunt hunting down people of a certain race trait profession political conviction for doing or saying something sinfulNotes Edit German Resistance Memorial Center Biographie gdw berlin de Retrieved 30 August 2020 OED 2014 show trial SHOW TRIAL definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary dictionary cambridge org Retrieved 19 June 2019 Definition of SHOW TRIAL www merriam webster com Retrieved 19 June 2019 Busky Donald F 2002 Communism in History and Theory Greenwood Publishing Group p 11 Show Trials in China After Tiananmen Square Mark Findlay Journal of Law and Society Vol 16 No 3 Autumn 1989 pp 352 359 Published by Wiley Blackwell Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo jailed for subversion BBC News 25 December 2009 China s Show Trial of the Century Ma Jian Project Syndicate 20 August 2012 China s low acquittal rates interesting statistics The China Collection 5 May 2020 Retrieved 3 September 2021 a b McCoy Terrence 3 November 2014 China scored 99 9 percent conviction rate last year The Washington Post Retrieved 9 March 2021 a b Ramseyer Mark Rasmusen Eric January 2001 Why is the Japanese Conviction Rate so High The Journal of Legal Studies 30 1 53 88 doi 10 1086 468111 S2CID 55632179 Oi Mariko 2 January 2013 Japan crime Why do innocent people confess BBC News Retrieved 11 June 2022 Mac Ryo 11 February 2018 The Whole Story on Japan s 99 Conviction Rate and the Corruption that Follows Skeptikai Retrieved 11 June 2022 a b Hogg Chris 29 October 2007 Forced confessions in Japan bbc com BBC Retrieved 11 June 2022 Onishi Norimitsu 12 September 2007 Coerced confessions Justice derailed in Japan iht com International Herald Tribune Archived from the original on 12 September 2007 Retrieved 11 June 2022 Court acquits man but kept lid on forced confession The Japan Times 11 October 2007 Retrieved 11 June 2022 Red faced NPA sets up interrogation guidelines Asahi Shimbun 25 January 2008 Archived from the original on 27 January 2008 Retrieved 26 February 2008 Truong Alice 10 December 2018 Carlos Ghosn is up against Japan s 99 9 conviction rate Quartz Retrieved 11 June 2022 Cosgrove Elly Cosgrove Lee Yen Nee 31 December 2019 Fugitive ex Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn says he fled Japan to escape injustice CNBC Retrieved 11 June 2022 Issam Abdallah Kelly Tim 30 December 2019 Ghosn says he escaped injustice in Japan Lebanon calls arrival a private matter Reuters Retrieved 11 June 2022 Fuchs Erin 11 January 2020 Pretty much everybody prosecuted gets convicted Carlos Ghosn exposes Japan to new scrutiny finance yahoo com Retrieved 11 June 2022 UN Experts Mass Trial in Bahrain Violated Human Rights Torture Enforced Disappearances and Unfair Trials 7 January 2019 Doctors in the dock in Bahrain s show trial www theaustralian com au 21 June 2011 Saudi Arabia 14 protesters facing execution after unfair trials Amnesty International Cumming Bruce Nick 25 March 2014 U N Expresses Alarm Over Egyptian Death Sentences The New York Times Egypt Shocking Death Sentences Follow Sham Trial Human Rights Watch hrw org 25 March 2014 Egyptian court sentences nearly 530 to death Washington Post 24 March 2014 Archived from the original on 25 March 2014 A coronation flop President Abdel Fattah al Sisi fails to bring enough voters to the ballot box economist com Egypt sentences to death 529 supporters of Mohamed Morsi The Guardian 24 March 2014 Hendawi Hamza 16 May 2015 Ousted Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi Sentenced to Death Archived from the original on 26 May 2015 Retrieved 22 May 2015 The Scale of Turkey s Purge Is Nearly Unprecedented The New York Times 2 August 2016 Retrieved 7 August 2016 Turkey fires 3 900 in second post referendum purge Reuters com 29 April 2017 Chase William 2005 12 Stalin as producer the Moscow show trials and the construction of mortal threats In Davies Sarah Harris James eds Stalin A New History Cambridge Cambridge University Press pp 226 227 ISBN 9781139446631 Retrieved 25 September 2018 Lenin appreciated the power of show trials and was keen to use them In a February 1922 letter Lenin recommended staging a series of model trials that would administer quick and forceful repression in Moscow Piter Petrograd Kharkov and several other important centres Priestland David February 2007 Stalinism and the Politics of Mobilization Ideas Power and Terror in Inter war Russia Oxford Oxford University Press published 2007 p 167 ISBN 9780199245130 Retrieved 4 April 2021 The characters who embodied these sins then confessed in a self criticism session This type of political theatre obviously had a great deal in common with the political show trial and with rituals of self criticism in the party a b Bideleux amp Jeffries 2007 p 477 a b Crampton 1997 p 261 a b c Crampton 1997 p 262 a b c Crampton 1997 p 263 a b c Crampton 1997 p 264 a b c d Crampton 1997 p 265 Zhurnalista Artema Majorova budut sudit za melkoe huliganstvo Vse novosti Belarusi Retrieved 21 March 2022 Sudejskij skorostrel Belorusskij sud rassmotrel protestnoe delo za 3 minuty Gorodskie portaly Belarusi Govorim by Retrieved 21 March 2022 Pravozashitnik o dele zhurnalista Dmitriya Lupacha Zasedanie dlilos tri minuty Eto ne sud belsat eu in Russian Retrieved 21 March 2022 V Belarusi v 2020 godu 99 7 prigovorov byli obvinitelnymi belsat eu in Russian Retrieved 21 March 2022 Court rehabilitates WW2 era Chetnik leader Draza Mihailovic English on B92 net B92 net Retrieved 4 January 2019 Serbia Rehabilitates WWII Chetnik Leader Mihailovic www balkaninsight com 14 May 2015 Retrieved 4 January 2019 Draza Mihailovic rehabilitated May 14 2015 InSerbia 18 May 2015 Hauner Milan Winter 2001 2002 20 July 2011 Crime and Punishment in Prague The Strange Case of Karel Vas and Gen Heliodor Pika PDF Archived PDF from the original on 20 July 2011 Retrieved 25 June 2020 Remembering General Heliodor Pika first victim of the communist show trials Radio Prague International 19 June 2009 Retrieved 25 June 2020 Milada Horakova Radio Praha old radio cz Archived from the original on 27 June 2020 Retrieved 25 June 2020 Dr Horakova Milada a spol Ustav pro studium totalitnich rezimu www ustrcr cz Retrieved 25 June 2020 Young director to bring story of Milada Horakova to silver screen Radio Prague International 6 April 2007 Retrieved 25 June 2020 Nicolae și Elena Ceaușescu Impreună am luptat să murim impreună Adevărul 19 December 2009 Peter Hoffmann The History of the German Resistance 1933 1945 p xiii Reuters dead link Brazil s former president Lula walks free from prison after supreme court ruling TheGuardian com 8 November 2019 Lula Brazil ex president s corruption convictions annulled BBC News 9 March 2021 Brazil Supreme Court rules judge who convicted Lula was biased DW 23 03 2021 Deutsche Welle References EditBideleux Robert Jeffries Ian 2007 A History of Eastern Europe Crisis and Change Routledge ISBN 978 0 415 36626 7 Crampton R J 1997 Eastern Europe in the twentieth century and after Routledge ISBN 0 415 16422 2 Hodos George H Show Trials Stalinist Purges in Eastern Europe 1948 1954 New York Westport Conn and London Praeger 1987 Showtrials Website Archived 18 November 2018 at the Wayback Machine of the European Union Balazs Szalontai Show trials In Ruud van Dijk et al eds Encyclopedia of the Cold War London and New York Routledge 2008 pp 783 786 Downloadable at academia eduExternal links Edit Media related to Show trials at Wikimedia Commons Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Show trial amp oldid 1145117128, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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