Gao Yu (高瑜), a 71-year-old Chinese journalist who has repeatedly challenged the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) during a decades-long career, was sentenced to seven years in prison yesterday after a court in Beijing found her guilty of leaking state secrets abroad.
Gao said she would appeal, according to her lawyer and her brother, who were in the courtroom.
The Third Intermediate People’s Court announced the verdict nearly five months after Gao stood trial there, a delay that one of her defense lawyers, Mo Shaoping (莫少平), had said was unusual and suggested some indecision about how to handle the case.
Photo: EPA
“This outcome was expected, but we still feel it was wrong not to listen to the defense lawyers’ arguments,” Gao’s younger brother, Gao Wei (高衛), said by telephone after emerging from the court in north Beijing. “I signaled to her and told her to stay well. She said: ‘Don’t worry. I’m going to appeal.’”
Mo confirmed the seven-year prison sentence in a telephone interview.
“She said when she was being led out of the courtroom that she’d definitely appeal,” Mo said.
Gao Yu’s lawyers and supporters have maintained that the charge of leaking state secrets abroad was absurd, even given the Chinese government’s broad definition of “state secrets.”
Mo said that Gao Yu was convicted of disclosing a CCP directive that had already been widely summarized on government Web sites. The directive laid out the party’s plans for an offensive against liberal political ideas and values.
According to Mo, the verdict said that, in July 2013, Gao Yu gave the document to the Mirror Media Group, a Chinese news outlet based in the US. The company, which published the directive, has denied receiving it from her.
“There’s absolutely no basis for the case,” Mirror Media Group chief executive Ho Pin said by telephone from New York after the verdict was announced.
FALSE DOCUMENTS? Actor William Liao said he was ‘voluntarily cooperating’ with police after a suspect was accused of helping to produce false medical certificates Police yesterday questioned at least six entertainers amid allegations of evasion of compulsory military service, with Lee Chuan (李銓), a member of boy band Choc7 (超克7), and actor Daniel Chen (陳大天) among those summoned. The New Taipei City District Prosecutors’ Office in January launched an investigation into a group that was allegedly helping men dodge compulsory military service using falsified medical documents. Actor Darren Wang (王大陸) has been accused of being one of the group’s clients. As the investigation expanded, investigators at New Taipei City’s Yonghe Precinct said that other entertainers commissioned the group to obtain false documents. The main suspect, a man surnamed
The government is considering polices to increase rental subsidies for people living in social housing who get married and have children, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said yesterday. During an interview with the Plain Law Movement (法律白話文) podcast, Cho said that housing prices cannot be brought down overnight without affecting banks and mortgages. Therefore, the government is focusing on providing more aid for young people by taking 3 to 5 percent of urban renewal projects and zone expropriations and using that land for social housing, he said. Single people living in social housing who get married and become parents could obtain 50 percent more
DEMOGRAPHICS: Robotics is the most promising answer to looming labor woes, the long-term care system and national contingency response, an official said Taiwan is to launch a five-year plan to boost the robotics industry in a bid to address labor shortages stemming from a declining and aging population, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The government approved the initiative, dubbed the Smart Robotics Industry Promotion Plan, via executive order, senior officials told a post-Cabinet meeting news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s population decline would strain the economy and the nation’s ability to care for vulnerable and elderly people, said Peter Hong (洪樂文), who heads the National Science and Technology Council’s (NSTC) Department of Engineering and Technologies. Projections show that the proportion of Taiwanese 65 or older would
Democracies must remain united in the face of a shifting geopolitical landscape, former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) told the Copenhagen Democracy Summit on Tuesday, while emphasizing the importance of Taiwan’s security to the world. “Taiwan’s security is essential to regional stability and to defending democratic values amid mounting authoritarianism,” Tsai said at the annual forum in the Danish capital. Noting a “new geopolitical landscape” in which global trade and security face “uncertainty and unpredictability,” Tsai said that democracies must remain united and be more committed to building up resilience together in the face of challenges. Resilience “allows us to absorb shocks, adapt under
RSS