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China jails human rights activist
03/04/2008 07:27 - (SA)
Beijing - A dissident critical of China's Tibet policy was jailed for three-and-a-half years on Thursday, a sentence that is likely to draw more international
criticism of the country's political controls ahead of the
Beijing Olympics.
The Beijing Number One Intermediate People's Court found
human rights activist Hu Jia, 34, guilty of "inciting
subversion of state power" for criticising the ruling Communist
Party, his lawyers said. Hu had argued he was not guilty.
Starting with advocacy for rural Aids sufferers, Hu emerged
as one of the nation's most vocal advocates of democratic
rights, religious freedom and self-determination for Tibet,
which has recently been shaken by protests and a security
crackdown.
'Excessive' statements
"It's the defence position that citizens have the right to
free speech under the constitution and so the prosecution case
shouldn't stand," one of his lawyers, Li Fangping, told
reporters.
But Hu had also acknowledged to the court that some of his
statements had been "excessive", Li said.
"In the end, I think that he came to accept that some of his
statements were contrary to the law as it stands," another of
his lawyers, Li Jinsong, said. "So to some extent he accepted
the prosecution's allegations."
His conviction is likely to become a focus for critics of
the Communist Party's strict controls on dissent and protest
ahead of the Olympics in August.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice raised Hu's case
when in Beijing in February, and the European Union and other
Western governments have also pressed China on the case.
Wife under house arrest
Hu was detained by police in late December after spending
more than 200 days under house arrest in a Beijing apartment
complex called Bobo Freedom City.
His wife, Zeng Jinyan, who has also often criticised the
Chinese government, and their infant daughter remain under
house arrest there, and their telephone is cut off.
Amnesty International said this week the Beijing Olympics
had so far failed to bring the improvement in Chinese citizens'
rights that the government said the event would foster.
International Olympic Committee inspectors urged China, a
frequent censor of the airwaves, to keep the internet open for
the duration of the Games.
Hu kept internet and telephone contact with dissidents,
disgruntled citizens and foreign journalists, and his
dispatches on an overseas Chinese-language website formed the
heart of the prosecution's accusations, one of his lawyers said
earlier.
- Reuters
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