A prominent Chinese civil rights activist was jailed for five years yesterday after being found guilty of running an illegal business, his lawyer and his wife said.
Guo Feixiong (
Guo, who was arrested in September last year, was accused of participating in the illegal publication of a book that exposed widespread corruption among government officials in Shenyang in 2001, Hu said.
His wife, Zhang Qing (
"The punishment was very unfair and I'm extremely angry about it," she said in a telephone interview, adding that she would go on a one-day hunger strike to protest the verdict.
"It's obviously a case of political persecution," she said.
Her husband had appeared calm after the verdict was announced, she said.
"He told the judge: `You are using a roundabout way to promote China's democratic movement ... and I'm very proud to play a role in this,'" Zhang said of Guo.
She said authorities had seized on the fact that the book had been published without a licence as an excuse to punish Guo, who had tried to help villagers in numerous land confiscation cases in Guangdong Province.
He was particularly well known for helping residents in a land dispute in Guangdong's Taishi village that started in 2004.
Guo was also an associate of dissident lawyer Gao Zhisheng (
China also sentenced a human rights campaigner yesterday to 18 months of "reeducation through labor" after she organized a petition urging democratic reform, an overseas group said yesterday.
Liu Jie (
After battling authorities in Heilongjiang Province over her confiscated dairy business, 55-year-old Liu evolved into an unyielding grassroots campaigner among petitioners coming to Beijing with grievances over rights and alleged corruption.
Before the Chinese Communist Party's congress last month, she helped organize a petition demanding legal rights and democratic reforms. Liu was detained on Oct. 13.
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
‘UNWAVERING FRIENDSHIP’: A representative of a Japanese group that co-organized a memorial, said he hopes Japanese never forget Taiwan’s kindness President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday marked the 15th anniversary of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, urging continued cooperation between Taiwan and Japan on disaster prevention and humanitarian assistance. Lai wrote on social media that Taiwan and Japan have always helped each other in the aftermath of major disasters. The magnitude 9 earthquake struck northeastern Japan on March 11, 2011, triggering a massive tsunami that claimed more than 19,000 lives, according to data from Japanese authorities. Following the disaster, Taiwan donated more than US$240 million in aid, making it one of the largest contributors of financial assistance to Japan. In addition to cash donations and
RSS