Mainland dissident jailed for 9 years

23-12-2011

A mainland court has sentenced dissident writer Chen Wei to nine years in jail for publishing pro-democracy essays online.

Mr Chen's lawyer, Zheng Jianwei, said the court in Sichuan province found Mr Chen guilty of "inciting subversion of state power," following a brief hearing.

"Chen said in court, 'I'm not guilty'," said Mr Zheng. Mr Chen declared after the verdict was announced, "Dictatorship will fail, constitutional democracy will prevail", said Mr Zheng.

Mr Chen's wife, Wang, said the court's guilty verdict cited nine essays that he had published on overseas Chinese websites.

"They downloaded all his essays from overseas, and you can't read any of them on websites inside China," she said. "But they still said that the essays had an extremely malign impact inside China, even though most people in China can't read them."

Mr Chen, 42, was one of hundreds of dissidents, rights activists and protest organisers swept up in a crackdown on dissent this year, when the Communist Party sought to prevent potential protests inspired by uprisings across the Arab world.

Liang Xiaojun, the second lawyer who represented Chen at the trial, said the hearing lasted two and a half hours. "He said he's not guilty, he didn't mean to overthrow the political regime and that he wanted to pursue constitutional democracy through non-violent means," Mr Liang said.


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