Chinese Peasants’ Advocate Sentenced to 51 Months in Jail
By JOSEPH KAHN
Published: August 25, 2006
(Associated Press)
Chen Guangcheng, in an undated photograph, tried to stop forced abortions and sterilizations.
BEIJING, Aug. 24 — A Chinese court sentenced an advocate of peasants’ rights to more than four years in prison on Thursday after a trial his lawyers say was a sham.
The rights advocate, Chen Guangcheng, was convicted of destroying property and organizing a mob to block traffic. He earned the enmity of local Communist Party leaders in Shandong Province, in eastern China, when he sought to organize a class-action lawsuit against forced abortions and sterilizations there.
The New China News Agency announced the sentence, four years and three months, in a terse dispatch on its English-language news wire. The information did not appear in Chinese, and other state-run media have been banned from reporting on the matter.
Mr. Chen’s two-hour trial last week and the long sentence announced Thursday appear to reflect a concerted effort by Chinese authorities to punish lawyers and rights advocates, who increasingly in recent years have helped defend people aggrieved about land seizures, environmental abuses, religious persecution and population controls.
The Beijing police last week detained Gao Zhisheng, a lawyer and one of China’s most outspoken dissidents, on suspicion of criminal activity. Mr. Gao’s family has also been put under police guard. His whereabouts and the exact charges against him are unknown....
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/25/world/asia/25china.html