SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
Veteran pro-democracy activist Hu Shigen jailed for 7½ years for subverting state
Jun Mai and Nectar Gan
PUBLISHED : Wednesday, 03 August, 2016, 3:39pm
UPDATED : Wednesday, 03 August, 2016, 11:23pm
Hu Shigen, a veteran pro-democracy activist and underground church leader in China, was sentenced to 7½ years in jail on Wednesday on charges of subverting state power.
The sentencing at a court in Tianjin took place on the second day of hearings against four human rights advocates.
The defendants were among those detained during a sweeping crackdown on rights lawyers and activists in July last year. Rights campaigner Zhai Yanmin was given a three-year jail term, suspended for four years, by the court on Tuesday.
The hearing against Hu at the Tianjin No 2 Intermediate People’s Court lasted two hours and 20 minutes.
Hu pleaded guilty, saying he had taken the “criminal path” to promote Western-style democracy since the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.
He also confessed he was trying to overthrow the Communist party and pledged that he would not take part in any anti-government or anti-Communist Party activities in the future.
Hu was accused of sending another activist, Gou Hongguo, to Taiwan to take part in the”Interethnic/Interfaith Leadership Conference” organised by US-based NGO Initiatives for China in 2014.
He said he was invited by Yang Jianli, a US-based Chinese dissident and the founder of the organisation.
The conference was attended by “separatists from Xinjiang, Tibet and Inner Mongolia in China, as well as other democratic activists” and they shared views about how to overthrow one-party rule on the mainland through “colour revolutions”, the prosecution alleged.
Gou is due to appear in court in Tianjin this week.
He said in written testimony about the conference: “If there is any civil movement in mainland China, I could make use of what I learned to organise people to oppose the government.”
Hu was also accused by prosecutors of attending a dinner at the Qiweishao restaurant in Beijing in February 2015.
Hu, along with lawyers Zhou Shifeng, Li Heping and others allegedly discussed how to overthrow the Communist Party through peaceful civil action, prosecutors alleged.
Written testimony by Zhai, sentenced in Tianjin on Tuesday on subversion charges, said Hu told the lawyers and activists at the dinner that they should aggravate divisions within the Communist Party to provoke infighting.
They should also incite public hatred against the party and cause bloodshed in order to draw the attention of the international community, Zhai cited Hu as saying.
Prosecutors alleged the dinner was a platform for rights lawyers and activists to share anti- Communist Party thoughts.
Hu, 61, was also accused of encouraging petitioners and the public to protest in Qing’an in Heilongjiang last year after the police shot dead a man at a railway station, allegedly after he had assaulted an officer.
Further written testimony by Gou said Hu has made use of the underground church he was leading to promote anti-government sentiment.
Hu’s defence lawyer, who was appointed by the government, said his client’s speech at the restaurant attended by 15 others was spontaneous and he had not spread his comments beyond their immediate circle.
The lawyer pleaded for leniency because of Hu’s age and poor health.
Hu has previously served part of a 20 year jail term for “organising and leading a counter-revolutionary group”, “counter-revolutionary propaganda and incitement” and for distributing leaflets about the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989.
He was released in 2008 after his jail term was reduced by four years.
“I have determined not to participate in any activities that are against the government and the party,” Hu said in a final statement at the hearing.
Four Hong Kong-based media outlets and one from Taiwan were given access to the court hearing.
Gou and Zhou Shifeng, the director of the Beijing-based Fengrui law firm which was the focus of the rights crackdown last year, are due to appear in court on Thursday and Friday.
About 300 human rights lawyers and activists were detained in the crackdown in July last year. Nearly two dozen are still in detention.
Hu was born in 1954 and studied Chinese literature at Peking University.
This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as:
democracy veteran jailed for subversion
http://www.scmp.com/news/china/policies-politics/article/1998638/second-activist-sentenced-subversion-charges-after-huge