Show trial

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.

Show trials tend to be retributive rather than corrective and they are also conducted for propagandistic purposes. 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.

China

During the Land Reform Movement, between 1 and 2 million landlords were executed as counterrevolutionaries during the early years of Communist China. 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.

Chinese Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo was given a show trial in 2009. 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.

After a drop in acquittal rates in the 2000s, in 2014, the Chinese judicial system reached a conviction rate of 90%. 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."

Japan

Japan has a conviction rate of over 99.8%, even higher than contemporary authoritarian regimes. 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. 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.

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.

Prominent cases

In October 2007, the BBC published a feature giving examples and an overview of forced confessions in Japan. In the , 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." 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. These two cases damaged the international credibility of the Japanese police.

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. 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. 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." At a subsequent press conference, Ghosn added that "I did not escape justice. I fled injustice and persecution, political persecution".

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.

Egypt

The United Nations human rights office and various NGOs 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. By May 2014, approximately 16,000 people (and as high as more than 40,000 by one independent count) have been imprisoned after the 2013 Egyptian coup d'état in July 2013. Egypt's ousted President Mohamed Morsi

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