Chinese activist gets 8 years for subversion

BEIJING: China sentenced a prominent rights activist to eight years in jail for subversion yesterday, his lawyer said, the harshest sentence passed in a government crackdown on activism that began more than two years ago.

Also, in a separate case yesterday, a rights lawyer avoided criminal punishment despite being found guilty of inciting subversion because he admitted to his crimes, the Chinese court trying him said.

Wu Gan, a blogger better known by his online name “Super Vulgar Butcher”, planned to appeal against the eight-year sentence handed down by the Tianjin Municipality’s No 2 Intermediate People’s Court, his lawyer Yan Xin said.

Wu regularly championed sensitive cases of government abuses of power, both online and in street protests. He was detained in May 2015 and charged with subversion.

The activist criticised China’s political system online and used performance art to create disturbances, as well as insulting people and spreading false information, according to a statement from the court posted on its website.

“He carried out a string of criminal actions to subvert state power and overthrow the socialist system and seriously harmed state security and social stability,” the court said.

Before his arrest, Wu used his platform to cast doubt on the official version of events in an incident in early May 2015, in which a police officer shot a petitioner in a train station in northern China’s Heilongjiang province.

His sentence is the most severe in what rights groups have called an unprecedented attack on China’s rights activists and lawyers, known as the 709 crackdown, which began in full force on July 9, 2015.

The hardline approach to rights activism has shown no sign of softening as Chinese President Xi Jinping enters his second five-year term in office. Reuters