China jails human rights activist for eight years

A prominent Chinese human rights activist has been jailed for eight years for subversion.

Wu Gan has been held since 2015, in a spree which saw authorities arrest hundreds of lawyers and activists.

Mr Wu said he planned to appeal against the sentence, the harshest against a human rights activist since the crackdown.

He is known for online campaigns designed to humiliate authorities.

Convicting Mr Wu, the court accused him of being “dissatisfied with the current system of governance, and producing thoughts of subverting state power”.

Mr Wu spred the word on victims of state power, including a rape victim who killed her Communist Party official assailant and of four men who claimed they had been wrongfully jailed for murder.