Chinese prosecutors have dropped charges against a labour activist in southern Guangdong province, in a case widely seen as a litmus test of official tolerance for the country’s increasingly robust worker movement.
Wu Guijun, 41, went on trial in Shenzhen this year for allegedly leading a worker protest that disrupted public order – a charge used to jail a number of legal rights activists over the past 12 months.
Yesterday, however, prosecutors dropped the charges. Mr Wu had been released on bail late last month after spending more than a year in a detention centre, where he shared a small room with as many as 50 other prisoners. He could have spent another four years behind bars had he been convicted.