Show trial

A show trial is a public trial in which the guilt or innocence of the defendant has already been determined. 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]

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

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]

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]

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, 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–present 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, 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, 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, who claimed at the time that these trials were actually fair.

Russia under Vladimir Putin
See also: Russian 2022 war censorship laws

On 4 March 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed into law a bill introducing prison sentences of up to 15 years for those who publish "knowingly false information" about the Russian armed forces and their operations.[35] What is considered "false information" is decided by the Russian government. As of December 2022, more than 4,000 people were prosecuted under "fake news" laws in connection with the war in Ukraine.[36]

On 17 April 2023, Russian opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza was convicted on charges of treason and "spreading disinformation" about the Russian military, and sentenced to 25 years in prison.[37] Kara-Murza's conviction is the longest sentence for political activity since the fall of the Soviet Union, and the length of the sentence is comparable only to Stalin's purges in the 1930s.[38] Kara-Murza compared his case to show trials from the Stalin era.[39]

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,[40][41] several party purges occurred, with several hundred thousand members purged in several countries.[40][42] In addition to rank-and-file member purges, prominent communists were purged, with some subjected to public show trials.[42] 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.[43]

Such high-ranking party show trials included those of Koçi Xoxe in Albania and Traicho Kostov in Bulgaria, who were purged and arrested.[41] After Kostov was executed, Bulgarian leaders sent Stalin a telegram thanking him for the help.[43] In Romania, Lucrețiu Pătrășcanu, Ana Pauker and Vasile Luca were arrested, with Pătrășcanu being executed.[42] 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.[44] The higher-ranking the party member, generally the more harsh the torture that was inflicted upon him.[44] 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:[44]

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, 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."[45] 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.[45] The trials themselves were "shows", with each participant having to learn a script and conduct repeated rehearsals before the performance.[45] 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.[45]

Belarus

As of 2022, court cases in Belarus are often scheduled ten minutes apart from one another[46] and can conclude in as little three minutes,[47] and have been criticized for being "not a court".[48] Consistently from 2016 through 2020, trials resulting in a guilty verdict occurred at a frequency of 99.7% and 99.8%.[49]

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.[50][51][52]

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.[43]

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,[53] 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.[54]

Milada Horáková, a Czech politician focused on social issues and women's rights, who was jailed during the German occupation for her political activity,[55] 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[56] 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.[57] 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. 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.[58]

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.[59]

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.[60] 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.[61]

In 2021 Lula was acquitted of most charges after Supreme Federal Court judges confirmed that Lula's trial was unfair and politically biased.[62][63]

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): "show trial".
  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. McCoy, Terrence (3 November 2014). "China scored 99.9 percent conviction rate last year". The Washington Post. Retrieved 9 March 2021.
  11. 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. Hogg, Chris (29 October 2007). "'Forced confessions' in Japan". bbc.com. BBC. Retrieved 11 June 2022.
  15. 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.
  16. "Court acquits man but kept lid on forced confession". The Japan Times. 11 October 2007. Retrieved 11 June 2022.
  17. "Red-faced NPA sets up interrogation guidelines". 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. "Egyptian court sentences nearly 530 to death". 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). "Ousted Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi Sentenced to Death". 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. "Putin Signs Law Introducing Jail Terms for 'Fake News' on Army". Moscow Times. 4 March 2022. Archived from the original on 14 March 2022.
  36. Weir, Fred (5 December 2022). "In Russia, critiquing the Ukraine war could land you in prison". CSMonitor.com.
  37. "Russian opposition politician Vladimir Kara-Murza sentenced to 25 years in prison". Meduza. 17 April 2023. Archived from the original on 17 April 2023.
  38. "Putin's Regime Is Descending Into Stalinism". Politico. 18 April 2023.
  39. "Putin critic jailed for 25 years by Russia court for 'treason'". Financial Times. 17 April 2023.
  40. Bideleux & Jeffries 2007, p. 477
  41. Crampton 1997, p. 261
  42. Crampton 1997, p. 262
  43. Crampton 1997, p. 263
  44. Crampton 1997, p. 264
  45. Crampton 1997, p. 265
  46. "Журналиста Артема Майорова будут судить за "мелкое хулиганство"". Все новости Беларуси. Retrieved 21 March 2022.
  47. "Судейский скорострел. Белорусский суд рассмотрел "протестное" дело за 3 минуты". Городские порталы Беларуси – Govorim.by. Retrieved 21 March 2022.
  48. "Правозащитник о деле журналиста Дмитрия Лупача: "Заседание длилось три минуты. Это не суд"". belsat.eu (in Russian). Retrieved 21 March 2022.
  49. "В Беларуси в 2020 году 99,7% приговоров были обвинительными". belsat.eu (in Russian). Retrieved 21 March 2022.
  50. "Court rehabilitates WW2-era Chetnik leader Draza Mihailovic - English - on B92.net". B92.net. Retrieved 4 January 2019.
  51. "Serbia Rehabilitates WWII Chetnik Leader Mihailovic". www.balkaninsight.com. 14 May 2015. Retrieved 4 January 2019.
  52. ""Draza Mihailovic rehabilitated", May 14, 2015, InSerbia". 18 May 2015.
  53. Hauner, Milan (Winter 2001–2002) (20 July 2011). "Crime and Punishment in Prague: The Strange Case of Karel Vaš and Gen. Heliodor Píka" (PDF). Archived (PDF) from the original on 20 July 2011. Retrieved 25 June 2020.
  54. "Remembering General Heliodor Píka, first victim of the communist show trials". Radio Prague International. 19 June 2009. Retrieved 25 June 2020.
  55. "Milada Horáková – Radio Praha". old.radio.cz. Archived from the original on 27 June 2020. Retrieved 25 June 2020.
  56. "Dr. Horáková Milada a spol. – Ústav pro studium totalitních režimů". www.ustrcr.cz. Retrieved 25 June 2020.
  57. "Young director to bring story of Milada Horakova to silver screen". Radio Prague International. 6 April 2007. Retrieved 25 June 2020.
  58. Nicolae și Elena Ceaușescu: „Împreună am luptat, să murim împreună!" Adevărul, 19 December 2009.
  59. Peter Hoffmann "The History of the German Resistance, 1933–1945"p.xiii
  60. Reuters
  61. "Brazil's former president Lula walks free from prison after supreme court ruling". TheGuardian.com. 8 November 2019.
  62. "Lula: Brazil ex-president's corruption convictions annulled". BBC News. 9 March 2021.
  63. "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 Archived 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

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