A blind Chinese activist jailed for more than four years after exposing government abuses of the one-child policy has unexpectedly won an appeal, his lawyer and wife said yesterday.
A court in east China this week overturned a sentence delivered in August against Chen Guangcheng (陳光誠), a blind, self-taught lawyer, although the case has been returned to a lower court for retrial, said his lawyer, Li Jinsong (李勁松).
"It was found that there have been serious violations in the legal procedures," Li said, citing the verdict of the Yinan County court in Shandong Province.
Li described the overturning of the guilty verdict as the "best possible outcome" that could be expected. "The original decision was completely wrong," he said.
Chen's wife welcomed the news with cautious optimism, noting that the constant surveillance on her over the past year had still not eased.
"I am very, very happy, whatever the outcome is going to be ... I don't know whether it will be a fair and transparent retrial, but at least we have another chance," Yuan Weijing (袁偉靜) said in a phone interview.
Yuan said she was still closely guarded by several agents around the clock and was barred from traveling to see her oldest child, who is living with her mother.
Chen's relatives, lawyers and supporters have been harassed and sometimes beaten up over the past year when they tried to visit him.
Chen ran into trouble with authorities in Shandong's Linyi City last year after accusing them of forcing thousands of women to be sterilized and have abortions as late as eight months into their pregnancies.
In August, the Yinan County court sentenced 34-year-old Chen to four years and three months in jail on charges of "willfully damaging property and organizing a mob to disturb traffic."
The charges came after villagers protesting police abuse of Chen clashed with authorities in February and March.
But rights groups say the charges were laid to silence and punish Chen for exposing violations of the one-child policy.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
US President Donald Trump yesterday announced sweeping "reciprocal tariffs" on US trading partners, including a 32 percent tax on goods from Taiwan that is set to take effect on Wednesday. At a Rose Garden event, Trump declared a 10 percent baseline tax on imports from all countries, with the White House saying it would take effect on Saturday. Countries with larger trade surpluses with the US would face higher duties beginning on Wednesday, including Taiwan (32 percent), China (34 percent), Japan (24 percent), South Korea (25 percent), Vietnam (46 percent) and Thailand (36 percent). Canada and Mexico, the two largest US trading
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
RSS