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Authorities in China’s Guizhou and Jiangsu provinces have jailed two journalists and one member of the family after they had been important of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
On Jan. 8, the Nanming District People’s Court in Guizhou’s provincial capital, Guiyang, jailed former journalist Zhang Jialong for 18 months after discovering him responsible of “picking quarrels and stirring up trouble.”
The case in opposition to him was constructed on allegations that he had retweeted or favored tweets important of the federal government on Twitter, together with tweets in regards to the Hong Kong protest motion, the overseas-based Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) community stated in a report on its web site.
Zhang had been a journalist with Tencent till 2014, when he met with then-U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, and requested him to assist “tear down” the Great Firewall, a fancy system of blocks, filters, and human censorship that limits what Chinese web customers and do and see on-line. He was fired following that assembly and later detained.
“The result has been decided: he got one year and six months,” Xiao Yunyang, certainly one of Zhang’s protection legal professionals, instructed RFA this week. “He has already said he wants to appeal.”
“My position is that he is not guilty.”
Assuming the authorities rely time already served, Zhang will likely be launched on Feb. 11, the eve of the standard Lunar New Year celebrations.
Zhang’s spouse Shao Yuan stated that whereas the result wasn’t too unhealthy for her household, she has maintained her husband’s innocence all alongside.
“Luckily, the dust has finally settled, and we are getting some kind of positive payback from this judgment,” Shao stated. “But I think anyone should have the right to express their thoughts, regardless of whether they support or criticize the government.”
“[Zhang] must feel like this is political persecution,” she added.
An ongoing crackdown
Guangzhou-based author Ye Du stated Zhang’s jailing was a part of an ongoing crackdown by the CCP on its residents utilizing Twitter.
“One aspect of the crackdown in recent years has been the conviction of people on the basis of their tweets,” Ye instructed RFA. “Internet users have been forced to delete tweets, or their Twitter accounts, and have even been detained in large numbers.”
“[Zhang’s] case is one of the most severe examples of this persecution.”
A day earlier than Zhang’s sentence was handed, on Jan. 7, the Pizhou Municipal People’s Court within the japanese province of Jiangsu jailed journalist Li Xinde for 5 years after discovering him responsible of “illegal business activity.”
Li’s son Li Chao was handed a one-year jail time period on the identical time.
‘A really harmful enterprise’
Li was first detained by police in October 2019 and positioned in “residential surveillance at a designated location (RSDL),” not lengthy after he printed a declare {that a} courtroom in Tianjin had wrongfully convicted a businessman.
Li, an investigative reporter, based and ran the China Public Watchdog Network, which had a deal with exposing corrupt officers.
Beijing-based rights lawyer Liu Xiaoyuan commented through Twitter: “To speak out on behalf of those suffering injustice in today’s society, and to monitor the agencies wielding state power, is a very dangerous business.”
Zhang Yu, who heads the writers’ group Independent Chinese PEN, stated costs of “illegal business activity” are sometimes introduced in opposition to peaceable critics of the CCP.
“The main charge used to suppress freedom of speech in China is incitement to subvert state power, but they have to show in what part of their speech or writing they did that,” Zhang instructed RFA.
“They may use illegal business activity if what they said was particularly sensitive, or if they can’t really find evidence to support [subversion] charges in what they said or wrote,” Zhang stated. “It has nothing to do with [the defendant] actually having conducted illegal business activity.”
Reported by Yitong Wu and Chingman for RFA’s Cantonese Service, and by Lin Peiyu for the Mandarin Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.
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