Chinese Journalist Accused of Stealing State Secrets Affirms Innocence at Trial BEIJING - Amid heavy security, Gao Yu, an elderly journalist accused of stealing state secrets, went on trial in Beijing on Friday in a closely watched case analysts said was aimed at silencing a voice that gave the world rare glimpses into internal Communist Party politics. Ms. Gao's trial at the newly built, high-tech Beijing No. 3 Intermediate People's Court was closed to observers and lasted four hours, said her lawyer, Mo Shaoping. A verdict had yet to be announced. "She said she was innocent," Mr. Mo said in a telephone interview shortly after the trial ended. And I said that her guilt could not be proven beyond reasonable doubt. He added that Ms. Gao had called on the judicial authorities to implement the spirit of legal reform that has been promised by China's leaders and judge her fairly. "She said that she hoped the judge would show how the legal reform in China that was promised in the Fourth Plenum would impact her case," Mr. Mo said, referring to a top Communist Party meeting last month that promised more justice for the country. Prosecutors have not made public the core of the charge against the 70-year-old Ms. Gao, but it is believed to center on accusations that she sent Mirror Monthly - a Chinese-language political magazine based in New York - a copy of an announcement issued in April 2013 by the party's Central Committee. The announcement warned party members of the dangers posed by "Western constitutional democracy," universal values and independent media, among other things. Referred to as Document No. 9, it was seen as part of efforts by the party to ideologically inure Chinese against foreign ideas such as democracy. The release of the document raised concerns about a sharp swing to the left early in the presidency of Xi Jinping. We can't be sure if Document No. 9 is an excuse or a reason for her arrest," Chang Ping, a Chinese journalist who lives in Germany, said in a telephone interview about Ms. Gao's trial. "But the articles she wrote all touched on the internal politics of the Communist Party," and lately, "on Xi Jinping," he said. Ms. Gao was published widely on Deutsche Welle, the German international state broadcaster, among others media outlets. The document was designed to be read by party leaders all the way down to county level, and by May last year, local newspapers in China had begun publishing its contents, Mr. Chang said. Because of the wide distribution of the document, "the charges don't stand," he said. I think this is an overall reckoning with her. Several human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, denounced Ms. Gao's trial as an attack on freedom of speech, and called on China to release her. The maximum sentence for leaking state secrets is life in prison. Ms. Gao and her son, Zhao Meng, were detained by the police in Beijing on April 24, almost exactly a year after the document was issued. She had "obtained a photocopy of a document and sent it overseas electronically," according to a CCTV report that aired in early May. In the report, Ms. Gao was filmed confessing to the charge. "I think that what I did was outside the law and damaged national interests," Ms. Gao, her face pixelated, said on camera. I acknowledge my guilt. But Mr. Mo, her lawyer, said this week that the confession was false and was made under duress out of concern for her son, and that she had retracted it. By the time she was detained, the contents of the document had already been circulating on the Internet in Chinese for months, Mr. Chang said, with versions appearing since June 2013. Three months later in August 2013, Mirror Monthly, the New York-based magazine, published details about Document No. The New York Times also reported on it that month. "By that point it was a document that was available down to the county level," Mr. Chang said. You can't call something secret if everyone has it. China has a wide, vague definition of state secrets, which makes the issue nebulous. Ms. Gao had nothing to do with the Mirror Monthly story, said Ho Pin, chief executive of the Mirror Media Group, which owns the magazine. He said he provided a declaration to her lawyer last month to that effect. The magazine often publishes internal material from China. We didn't receive any document from Gao Yu. So we don't know why the government says she sent it to us," he said in a telephone interview from New York. Mr. Ho said the trial was a test of a recent pledge by the party to improve justice in China, known as "govern the country by law." "If they let Gao Yu free, there is hope for Chinese law," he said. If they convict her - then, well, it's very terrible. This is the third time Ms. Gao has had trouble with the state for her writings in a prolific career spanning decades. Detained after the June 1989 crackdown in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, she was imprisoned for more than a year. In 1993 she was again detained, serving a total of seven years. Multiple calls seeking comment from Xin Zhenxing, the spokesman of the Beijing No. 3 Intermediate People's Court, failed. Mr. Xin was in "meetings," said a woman who answered the telephone. "They are framing Gao Yu because they don't want this independent journalist to have a space to survive in China," Mr. Ho said. "And they want party elders to lose their voice in overseas media," he added, with Ms. Gao in close touch with many retired, older and liberal figures in the party. "She often published their calls for political democratization," Mr. Ho said. Mr. Chang said, "I think this is happening because of the overall tight atmosphere now. They're picking people up all over the place. The authorities used to not pick up people who were over 70, but Gao is 70 and they took her. There was also Tie, who is over 80," Mr. Chang said, referring to 81-year-old Tie Liu, a writer and underground publisher who was detained at home in September on charges of "creating a disturbance." "Even sick people are being arrested," Mr. Chang said. Ms. Gao reportedly has some health issues, including high blood pressure.