A veteran Chinese democracy activist was sentenced to two years in prison following an altercation with police in which both he and his son were allegedly beaten, the man's lawyer said yesterday.
Zhu Yufu (朱虞夫), 54, was sentenced on Tuesday by the Shangcheng District court in Hangzhou on charges of attacking police and interfering in public duties, Mo Shaoping (莫少平) said.
Zhu's son, Zhu Ang (
"I think the sentence is completely unfair. Zhu Yufu should not be sentenced to jail at all," Mo, who frequently represents political dissidents, said in a telephone interview.
He said he planned to appeal but was still considering a legal strategy.
death
Meanwhile, a human-rights group reported the death of Shanghai housing rights activist Chen Xiaoming (
Chen died on July 1 in Shanghai, hours after his family obtained an emergency medical parole and had him transferred to a hospital, New York-based Human Rights in China said. The group said Chen had a chronic illness which it didn't identify, allegedly worsened by police beatings and denial of drugs and medical care.
Chen's treatment violated both Chinese law and the UN's Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, it said.
Mo said the public prosecutor had surprised the defense by raising Zhu Yufu's previous convictions in court, but not in documents submitted beforehand.
A participant in decades of pro-democracy campaigning, Zhu's most recent prior arrest came in June 1999 following attempts to register a would-be opposition group -- the China Democracy Party.
He was released last year after a seven-year sentence for subversion and vowed to continue exposing official abuses.
travel ban
The doctor who exposed the cover-up of China's SARS outbreak in 2003 has been barred from traveling to the US to collect a human-rights award, a friend of the doctor and a human rights group said this week.
Jiang Yanyong (
His army-affiliated work unit, Beijing's Hospital 301, denied him permission to travel to the award ceremony in September, Hu Jia (
The Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy, which is based in Hong Kong, also issued a statement reporting the rejection of the travel request.
The doctor could not be reached at his home for comment, and a person who answered the phone in the director's office of Hospital 301 said the situation was unclear, declining to provide further details.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
RESTAURANT POISONING? Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang at a press conference last night said this was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan An autopsy discovered bongkrekic acid in a specimen collected from a person who died from food poisoning after dining at the Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said at a news conference last night. It was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) said. The testing conducted by forensic specialists at National Taiwan University was facilitated after a hospital voluntarily offered standard samples it had in stock that are required to test for bongkrekic acid, he said. Wang told the news conference that testing would continue despite
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)