Defense lawyers for prominent Chinese activists boycotted Friday's hearing of his case in protest over irregularities in procedure amidst a probable clamp-down on rights advocates. The boycott resulted in another postponement of the long-delayed hearing.

Famous civil rights advocate and writer Guo Feixiong was taken into custody in January after he participated in a public protest on censorship together with another activist, Sun Desheng.

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Guo and Sun have been accused of "gathering a crowd to disturb public order" after both have expressed their support for the Southern Weekly newspaper.

The indictment also indicated that the defendants disregarded the law by acting as "ringleaders in gathering crowds to seriously disrupt order in public places."

According to Chen Guangwu, a member of Guo's legal team, all four of the lawyers representing the two accused will not attend the trial because of the authorities' failure to notify them three days in advance to prepare and for refusing to allow them to bring a laptop into the courtroom.

"If there are no lawyers present, under Chinese law they can't in theory continue ... but they might find someone else to represent them," he stated during an interview with Reuters, explaining that he would show up to negotiate a way to continue the trial with court officials.

Sun and Guo, whose real name is Yang Maodong, had remained silent throughout the day, thereby forcing the court to reschedule the trial.

On that day, roads outside the Guangzhou People's Court have been blocked by dozens of police officers.

Gou was known to have aided victims of corruption and assisted in pushing for human rights defense for over ten years. He was already imprisoned for a number of years in the past.

As President Xi Jinping started his hard-hitting campaign against corruption, his administration showed little tolerance for critical opinion by tightening media censorship and pursuing human rights advocates.

TagsGuo Feixiong, human rights advocate, trial, postpones