Gao’s brother Gao Zhiyi told The Associated Press that he has seen his brother but added it was “not convenient” to say more.

The dissident’s wife, Geng He, said her father and Gao’s brother saw him for half an hour in a remote prison in Xinjiang on Saturday in an emotional reunion. She expressed relief at proof her husband is alive and relatively well.

Geng, who now lives in California, says she was told Gao appeared paler than the last time his brother saw him two years ago but seemed otherwise the same.

The whereabouts of Gao, who earlier said he had been kidnapped and tortured by Chinese authorities, had been unknown for 20 months until state media reported in December that he was being sent back to prison for three years for violating his probation.

Read more about Gao Zhisheng’s case via CDT.

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Drubpa Kyab’s disappearance comes amid a huge clampdown in Tibetan-inhabited areas following several bouts of deadly unrest, and ahead of the March anniversary of the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama’s flight into exile.

A government official in Seda told AFP that he was unaware of the arrest of Drubpa Kyab. Police in the county did not answer phones on Sunday.

China has imposed virtual martial law in numerous Tibetan-inhabited regions as tensions have escalated, leading to the deaths last month of at least two people in clashes between police and locals in Sichuan, which borders Tibet.

Over the past year at least 20 Tibetans, many of them Buddhist monks, have set themselves on fire in protest at what they say is religious and cultural repression.

See more coverage on Tibet and recent protests via CDT. See also a report about the differences in relations between Han officials and Tibetans in areas of Qinghai vs areas of Sichuan, where many of the protests and subsequent violence have been centered.

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A Chinese court has sentenced a dissident writer to seven years in prison over a poem he wrote urging his countrymen to gather at a public square, a human rights group said Friday.

The hefty sentence comes ahead of next week’s visit to the U.S. by Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping— widely expected to be China’s next leader — where he is likely to face questions on human rights.

A court in Hangzhou city sentenced dissident Zhu Yufu on Friday in a hearing attended by his ex-wife and son, said the Chinese Human Rights Defenders. Zhu’s ex-wife and lawyers could not immediately be reached.

Zhu is among a group of writers and intellectuals targeted by Chinese authorities in a crackdown aimed at preventing Arab Spring-style popular uprisings.

Three other dissidents have received nine- and 10-year prison terms for subversion or inciting subversion over the last few months.

The Guardian has quoted Zhu’s son, who describes the activities that landed Zhu in court:

Zhu Yufu was jailed for “inciting subversion of state power” by a court in Hangzhou, eastern China, after a trial hearing on 31 January when prosecutors cited a poem and messages he had sent on the internet, his son Zhu Ang told Reuters.

The poem said: “It’s time, Chinese people! It’s time. The Square belongs to all.” References to a “square” might evoke memories among many Chinese people of Tiananmen Square in Beijing, though the poem did not mention it or the 1989 pro-democracy protests.

Prosecutors also cited text messages that he sent using Skype. There was no suggestion that the online chat service helped police to collect evidence.

[...]He [Zhu Ang] said the verdict cited his father’s online calls for mobilisation in the name of democracy.

An English translation of the entire poem can be seen on Bruce Hume’s blog.

BBC further quotes Zhu’s son, and gives a brief outline of Zhu’s earlier clashes with the State:

“Basically, the only chance that my father had to say anything was when he was being taken out after the hearing, and he stopped and said, ‘I want to appeal’.”

Mr Zhu, a veteran activist who turns 59 this month, was involved in the 1979 Democracy Wall movement, which pressed for faster change in China.

He has been jailed twice before for his activism – in 1999 for seven years and in 2007 for two years.

Zhu’s incarceration comes just as Vice President Xi Jinping prepares to visit the U.S. The sentencing happened in spite of a recent meeting between U.S. Vice President Joe Biden (who will be Xi Jinping’s host) and China focused human rights activists. From the Taipei Times:

In the meeting, Biden and the activists “discussed the deterioration of China’s human rights situation, prospects for reform and recommendations for US policy,” a White House statement said.

“The vice president underscored the administration’s belief in the universality of human rights and its commitment to human rights as a fundamental part of our foreign policy,” it said.

“He reiterated his view that greater openness and protection of universal rights is the best way to promote innovation, prosperity and stability in all countries, including China,” it said.

An AFP report describes U.S. State Department appeals on Zhu’s behalf:

“We are deeply concerned about these reports that he has been found guilty of inciting subversion of state power and sentenced to seven years in prison for writing a poem,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

[...]“We call on the Chinese government to release Zhu Yufu and all others detained for exercising their rights and to respect the universal human rights of all their citizens,” she added.

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Veteran activist Zhu Yufu faced trial in the prosperous eastern city of Hangzhou, where police arrested him in April and charged him with “inciting subversion of state power,” his lawyer, Li Dunyong, said.

The court did not deliver its verdict straight away. But Zhu, who turns 59 in February, appears likely to follow other Chinese dissidents who have received stiff prison terms from the party-run judiciary on subversion charges, which are often used to punish ardent advocates of democratic change.

In Zhu’s case, the prosecutors cited his poem, “It’s time,” as well as text messages that he sent using the Skype online chat service, said Li.

Read one of Zhu’s poems in this previous CDT post. Zhu previously served two years in prison on 2008. See also an explanation of the difference between “inciting subversion” and “subversion,” by the Siweiluozi blog.

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Freed from prison in 2010 but unable to walk, she ended up living in a Beijing park with her husband for nearly two months, until unflattering publicity led local officials to move them into a cheap hotel.

Their predicament will most likely take a turn for the worse in the coming weeks, when a court in the capital’s Xicheng district is expected to sentence the couple on charges that include “picking quarrels” and disturbing public order. “I’m afraid the sentence this time will be especially heavy,” their lawyer, Cheng Hai, said after their hearing on Thursday.

The trial of Ms. Ni and her husband, Dong Jiqin, capped a particularly grim year for Chinese dissidents and human rights advocates. In recent weeks, two veteran activists, Chen Wei and Chen Xi, have been given long sentences for essays criticizing the ruling Communist Party. Late last month, the authorities announced that Gao Zhisheng, a prominent rights lawyer, would have to spend an additional three years in prison for violating the terms of his probation.

Unaddressed in the terse official statement was how Mr. Gao, who had spent the previous 20 months in the custody of public security agents, had broken the law.

See also a report from Al Jazeera:

Read more about Ni Yulan via CDT. See more on CDT’s Human Rights page.

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A court in the southern city of Guiyang found Chen Xi guilty of the charge of “incitement to subvert state power” for 36 essays he wrote and posted online, his wife said by phone.

The United Nations Human Rights office said it was alarmed by the sentence handed down to Chen and other similarly harsh sentences given to other Chinese dissidents in recent days.

Chen maintained his innocence but will not appeal the verdict, said his wife, Zhang Qunxuan.

“This is utterly absurd,” Zhang said. “Chen Xi told the court it did not take into consideration the things he has written as a whole, and has interpreted his words out of context. But they have power and they don’t listen.”

The Time blog has more on Zhang’s reaction to her husband’s sentence:

Chen’s wife, Zhang Qunxuan, told Reuters he was convicted over the content of 36 essays that he had published on overseas websites that were critical of China’s ruling Communist Party. “To subvert you – can he do that?” Zhang said, according to Reuters. “Does he have any army? Does he have a police force? Does he have courts? With a piece of paper and a pen, can he subvert you? Are you so fragile?”

In an editorial, the Washington Post questions why the West has not reacted more forcefully to these two recent sentences:

China’s Communist rulers do not feel compelled to account for their actions, so the motivation for the crackdown is a subject of speculation. Most China-watchers believe the authorities have been spooked by the popular uprisings in the Middle East. They may also be more nervous than usual as they prepare for an equally opaque leadership change next year. A top security official reportedly said that crackdowns on “hostile forces”(government code for peaceful advocates of democracy) and “illegal religious organizations” (code for Christians, Falun Gong followers and others who choose to worship without government approval) will be a priority in the coming year.

The human rights crackdown has drawn relatively little attention or condemnation from the West. Perhaps this is because the allure of Chinese investment and the Chinese market is too strong. Perhaps the crackdown seems so out of keeping with popular images of bustling, modern, capitalist Shanghai that outsiders have a hard time believing it is going on.

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Desperate for interaction, Ai began to needle the guards to provoke a response. But they “just sat and stared at me with no expression. They were very young, and clean, and emotionless, like you were not there,” he says. With nothing to do, Ai paced back and forth in his cell, covering some 600 miles and losing almost 30 pounds during his 81 days of confinement. “All I wanted was a dictionary, even the simplest one.” Passing the time was “impossible,” he says. “I really wished someone could beat me. Because at least that’s human contact. Then you can see some anger. But to dismiss emotion, to be cut off from any reason, or anger, or fear, psychologically that’s very threatening.”

Since his release, Ai has been hesitant to go public with details about his imprisonment, other than to crack jokes about how it helped reduce his famous bulk. One friend says Ai is much more intense than before. Ai himself won’t elaborate on how the experience changed him, or on how it influenced his creative work, only saying, “I know what it’s like inside. It’s like a dark world.”

Read more about Ai’s detention and about reactions from him and his supporters to the tax bill.

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Liu’s prize famously sat on an empty seat during last year’s award ceremony in Olso, Norway, because the Chinese authorities did not allow him or his family to be in attendance. Liu is serving an 11-year sentence for “inciting subversion of state power” when he authored a petition calling for pro-democracy reforms in China.

As for what has changed one year later, 2011 has been marked by the silence of Chinese activists “achieved through disappearance, intimidation and abuse,” Time magazine noted.

Even Liu’s wife, Liu Xia, who was placed under severe supervision after he was awarded the prize last year, is still not allowed to communicate with the outside world. Our ABC News crew found out first hand last year when they tried to visit her home. Uniformed and plainclothes security guards had cordoned off the area.

Time Magazine’s blog has more on the current situation for activists in China a year after the Nobel was awarded:

It is safe to say that any wagers placed on another Chinese winning the Nobel Peace Prize this year would be wasted. The political changes that swept the Arab world this year have crashed impotently against a seawall of state power in China. The government’s response was to unleash a harsh crackdown on activists, disappearing dozens and blocking any attempts at public protest last spring. New legislation now under consideration would make secret detention, without any notice for family members, legal for periods of up to six months in cases of terrorism, state security or serious corruption, which human rights groups fear will be used to silence dissent.

The most significant aspect of Chinese activists this past year has been their silence, which has been achieved through disappearance, intimidation and abuse. Ai Weiwei, the artist and activist, spent nearly three months in detention on tax evasion charges and is now out on a form of bail, his movements and freedom to speak out restricted. Chen, a blind legal activist, is being held with his wife in a harsh form of house arrest in their village in Shandong province, despite completing a four-year prison term for damaging property and organizing an illegal protest. The couple’s six-year-old daughter has been blocked from attending school. Gao Zhisheng, a dissident lawyer who was convicted of subversion in 2006 and has described suffering extensive abuse in detention, remains missing and is presumably being held by authorities.

Meanwhile, the Chinese government’s anger over Norway’s awarding of the prize to Liu is being played out in the trade of fish. Norway has reported China to the WTO over import controls of salmon, the Independent reports:

The Chinese imposed additional import controls on Norwegian salmon last year in apparent retribution for the Nobel Peace Prize awarded in Oslo to the Chinese dissident, Liu Xiaobo. The result has been a collapse in sales of salmon to China, and the sight and smell of North Sea fish rotting in Chinese warehouses. The Norwegian Foreign Office said overall trade with China had grown by 46 per cent over the past six months. But sales of fresh salmon, meanwhile, have collapsed 61.8 per cent.

Officials said they would not speculate as to why Beijing had ignored trade rules relating to Norwegian salmon. But it seems clear that the threat from the Chinese embassy in Oslo last year, of “damage” to diplomatic ties should the Nobel Prize be handed to “a criminal” has focused on a narrow, iconic target.

Read seven years of reports by and about Liu Xiaobo via CDT.

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Yesterday two female activists @miaojue12 and @lss007 tried to enter Linyi village but were robbed and dumped in a nearby county, a few hours away.

@miaojue, an AIDS activist and a Buddhist nun, urged for help this morning [zh] in an Internet cafe:

求救：我和沙沙昨晚在东师古村口，束手就擒，被约莫二十多个山东大汉拖拽到一间黑屋，除了身上的衣服，手机，背包钱物等被洗劫一空。被黑头套，丢到莱芜市苗山旷野。我在马路遇见一个好心司机送我到苗山镇，还给了我十元钱，请推友慈悲联系同来的三推友前来救我，我饥寒交迫身无分文他们电话珍珠有。

Please help: Last night @lss007 and I were caught at Dongshi town Guchuan village. Around us were 20 big Shandong guys who surrounded us and dragged us to a dark house. They took off our clothes, stole our cell phones and money. They covered our heads with bags and threw us out (separately) from the car in the middle of nowhere at Laiwu city, Miaoshan town. I ran into a good hearted driver who drove me to Miaoshan and gave me 10 RMB. Please help to contact three of my Twitter friends (who were in Linyi) to come here and help. I don’t have any money with me and am now starving. Pearlher has their phone numbers.

@lss007 briefly wrote [zh] what she had been through this morning:

被抓出车，被抢劫，被猥亵，被黑头套，被用大衣闷，被拉到荒郊，被推进水中，被打流血，被丢弃。

I was dragged out of the car, robbed, harassed, had a bag tied to my head, was suffocated with a jacket, thrown out into a field, in a pool of water. I was bleeding from the beating, and dumped in the middle of nowhere.

Other intellectuals and activists have been campaigning for better treatment of Chen as well, including a call by @pearlher for supporters to submit video appeals that have been posted, and usually removed from, Youku. Many of the videos have since been uploaded to YouTube (h/t @bendilaowai). Five of them can be seen below; additional videos are available here.

Follow @pearlher for updates on Chen’s situation. @bendilaowai has also been posting updates and translations in English.

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Yang Maodong said the charges against him were trumped up and that during his time in custody his interrogators questioned him only about his pro-democracy activities, and not business matters.

“I am innocent,” he said. “It’s a political case and I was called a political prisoner in the places where I was detained. All of this is political persecution of me because I promoted democracy.”

Arrested in September 2006 and sentenced in November 2007, Yang was released from prison on Tuesday. The writer’s advocacy group, International PEN, has said Yang was targeted for writing the book Shenyang Political Earthquake, which allegedly exposed official corruption in a north-eastern province.

Human rights groups have said Yang, also known as Guo Feixiong, was tortured by police in his home province of Guangdong and in Shenyang, and was mistreated in prison in Guangdong.

Like other activists recently released from detention, Guo was reportedly tortured while in detention. He did not give details to reporters, only saying to AP:

“The only thing I can tell you is that I was given special treatment beyond people’s imagination in the detention centre in Liaoning and in prison,” he said. “I don’t want to talk about it in detail. I want to convey a message of forgiveness to the public and not to talk about hatred.”

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