A Chinese court sentenced the nephew of legal activist Chen Guangcheng (陳光誠) to more than three years in jail after a hurried, half-day trial yesterday that his parents were barred from attending.
The punishment against Chen Kegui (陳克貴) is seen as retaliation by local officials angered by Chen Guangcheng’s daring escape from house arrest in April. The activist fled to the US embassy and set off a diplomatic tussle between Beijing and Washington. The activist, who is blind, now lives in New York.
The Yinan County People’s Court convicted Chen Kegui, 32, of assaulting officials who stormed into his house looking for the activist, and sentenced him to three years and three months’ imprisonment, said his father, Chen Guangfu (陳光福). The court would not let him and his wife attend the trial, Chen Guangfu said, and police officers guarded them as they waited outside the courthouse.
Chen Guangcheng said he was infuriated by the punishment of his nephew, who he says acted in self-defense.
“This is a case that tramples on the rule of law. It is a declaration of war against fairness and justice in the world. I absolutely cannot accept this and am very, very angry,” Chen Guangcheng said in an interview from New York, where he has been studying English and law. “There is no doubt that this is a kind of retaliation against me.”
The charge of “intentional injury” centers on a clash between Chen Kegui and local officials who burst into his home looking for Chen Guangcheng after his escape. Chen Kegui allegedly hacked at the officials with knives after he and his parents had been beaten.
ACTIONABLE ADVICE: The majority of chatbots tested provided guidance on weapons, tactics and target selections, with Perplexity and Meta AI deemed to be the least safe From school shootings to synagogue bombings, leading artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots helped researchers plot violent attacks, according to a study published on Wednesday that highlighted the technology’s potential for real-world harm. Researchers from the nonprofit watchdog Center for Countering Digital Hate and CNN posed as 13-year-old boys in the US and Ireland to test 10 chatbots, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, Deepseek and Meta AI. Eight of the chatbots assisted the make-believe attackers in more than half the responses, providing advice on “locations to target” and “weapons to use” in an attack, the study said. The chatbots had become a “powerful accelerant for
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Since the war in the Middle East began nearly two weeks ago, the telephone at Ron Hubbard’s bomb shelter company in Texas has not stopped ringing. Foreign and US clients are rushing to buy his bunkers, seeking refuge in case of air raids, nuclear fallout or apocalypse. With the US and Israel pounding Iran, and Tehran retaliating with strikes across the region, Hubbard has seen demand for his product soar, mostly from Gulf nation customers in Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. “You can imagine how many people are thinking: ‘I wish I had a bomb shelter,’” Hubbard, 63, said in
STILL IN POWER: US intelligence reports showed that the Iranian regime is not in danger of collapse and retains control of the public, casting doubt on Trump’s exit Nearly every US Senate Democrat on Wednesday signed a letter sent to US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth requesting a “swift investigation” of airstrikes on a girls’ school in Iran that killed scores of children and any other potential US military actions causing civilian harm. Reuters reported on Thursday last week that US military investigators believe it is likely that US forces were responsible for the Feb. 28 strike on the school, as US and Israeli forces launched attacks on Iran. “The results of this school attack are horrific. The majority of those killed in the strikes were girls between the ages
RSS