Legal News

Chinese Blogger Sentenced to 3-1/2 Years for Subversion, Libel

By Dan Slater

“If Beijing wants to improve its human rights image in the run-up to the Olympic Games,” begins today’s WSJ editorial, “it has a funny way of showing it. Yesterday’s conviction and sentencing of civil rights activist Hu Jia sends a message that freedom in China remains restricted.”

Hu (pictured), a 34-year old blogger and human rights activist has been detained since December on charges of “inciting subversion of state power and the socialist system.” Yesterday, a Chinese court found him guilty and sentenced him to three-and-a-half years in prison. Here are reports from the WSJ and NYT; click here for past LB coverage.

The state-run Xinhua news agency, reports the WSJ, quoted from Thursday’s verdict that Hu had “spread malicious rumors, and committed libel in an attempt to subvert the state’s political power and socialist system” in two online articles.

The international outcry over the split between China’s pledge to improve human rights in advance of the Olympics, on the one hand, and its charges against Hu — labeled “specious” by Condoleeza Rice — on the other, has not found a voice at the International Olympic Committee.

On Thursday, Hein Verbruggen, head of the IOC inspection team to Beijing, delivered a speech on the IOC’s stance. “We are not a political organization, I am not afraid to tell you. We should not speak out on political issues,” he said. Hu’s case is “a matter of Chinese law,” he said, adding that there should be a “thick, fat, red line” between sports and politics. Also yesterday, notes the WSJ editorial board, the IOC concluded a final planning meeting with the Beijing Olympics authorities and pronounced that it was “satisfied” and “confident” China would put on “great Games.”

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on December 31, 1969 (boomark / email).