Hu Jia has been sentenced in prison for three and half years. From AFP:
…The United States and the European Union immediately spoke out in defence of Hu, who became the second Chinese dissident in less than two weeks to be jailed after using the Beijing Olympics to highlight human rights problems in China.
Hu, for many years one of China’s highest-profile human rights campaigners, was found guilty at a Beijing court of “incitement to subvert state power” following a one-day trial last month, lawyer Li Fangping said…Hu’s wife, Zeng Jinyan, 24, who recently gave birth to their first child and is also a prominent rights activist, said the verdict was the culmination of four years of harassment by authorities.
BBC says,”A prominent activist who publicised human rights abuses across China has been convicted of subversion and jailed for three-and-a-half years.”
The Washington Post starts,”Hu Jia, a persistent human rights campaigner in custody since December, was convicted Thursday of subverting the Chinese government through his online writings and sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison, his lawyer announced.”
AP reports, “Premier Wen Jiabao avoided mentioning Hu by name when questioned about the case in a news conference last month and denied that Beijing was rounding up government critics ahead of the Olympics.”
Danwei points out, “Interestingly, the Xinhua report that ran in the China Daily was published on Xinhua’s English website this morning, but has since been deleted.”
(Photo from europarl.europa.eu)
