China busts group staging paid protests

Police in east China's Shandong Province have busted a group that allegedly organized multiple mass protests to influence court sentences, according to the Ministry of Public Security.

The group in question specialized in paying a "relatively regular" group of people to act as mass protestors in the name of protecting the rights of petitioners and assisting lawyers advocating their rights, the ministry said in a late Sunday statement, citing police investigations.

Among the detained is Zhai Yanmin, 54, the main organizer that paid people to stage protests, and Liu Jianjun, a lawyer who accepted cases from involved parties who hoped to influence judges and assigned them to Zhai. They are under the charge of staging illegal gathering to disrupt social order.

"The group was close-knitted with specific assignments for its members, and their activities were seen in heated cases across the country," the statement said. Endi