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BFF-23
POLITICS-CHINA-RIGHTS
Chinese activist jailed for 8 years
TIANJIN, China, Dec 26, 2017 (BSS/AFP) – A Chinese court sentenced an
activist known by the online pseudonym “Super Vulgar Butcher” to eight years
in prison Tuesday after he refused to plead guilty to charges of “subverting
state power”.
Wu Gan, who was taken into police custody in May 2015, attracted
authorities’ attention with performance art and caustic commentary on Chinese
society and politics that he published online.
He was “dissatisfied with the current system of governance, and that
gradually produced thoughts of subverting state power,” a court in Tianjin
said in a statement explaining the verdict.
By “hyping up hot incidents”, Wu “attacked the national system that is the
basis for state authority and the constitution”, the court said.
Wu also “spread fake information” and “insulted others online”, the
statement said.
The prominent activist, with his recognisable bald head and glasses,
became the subject of the state’s ire for using his larger-than-life online
persona to draw public attention to human rights cases.
His nickname was a response to complaints about his use of “crude
language”.
He became the subject of intense scrutiny by state media in May 2015 in
what many activists saw as a sign of a looming crackdown on human rights
defenders.
Wu’s lawyer Yan Xin said the sentence was aimed at setting “an example so
other activists will say they are guilty when accused of crimes against the
state”.
“It’s clear (Wu) was sentenced so harshly because he refused to plead
guilty,” he said.
The verdict came the same day as a court in Changsha elected to exempt
former human rights lawyer Xie Yang from serving a sentence after he pleaded
guilty to charges of “inciting subversion of state power”.
Xie was released on bail in May after what critics described as a show
trial.
He had previously claimed that police used “sleep deprivation, long
interrogations, beatings, death threats, humiliations” on him.
But on Tuesday he denied he had been tortured, according to a video on the
court’s official Weibo social media account.
“On the question of torture, I produced a negative effect on and misled
the public, and I again apologise,” he told judges.
The court said he would face no criminal penalties following his full
confession.
Both Xie and Wu were among hundreds of legal staff and activists detained
in 2015’s so-called “709 crackdown”, where authorities detained more than 200
people, including lawyers who took on civil rights cases considered sensitive
by the ruling Communist Party.
BSS/AFP/MR/ 1220 hrs