Prominent Chinese human rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang has been given a three year suspended jail sentence for “inciting ethnic hatred” and “picking quarrels” in social media posts.
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The verdict in Mr. Pu’s case is the latest signpost in China’s wide-ranging crackdown on human-rights advocates and civil-society groups under Chinese President Xi Jinping, which some analysts say signals the Communist Party’s growing insecurity about its grip on power.
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“Clearly it is positive that Pu Zhiqiang is unlikely to spend another night in jail, yet that can not hide the gross injustice against him”, said William Nee, China Researcher at Amnesty International, in a statement.
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The sentencing means that Pu will be monitored during the suspension period, with the possibility of a reduced sentence if he demonstrates good behaviour.
Police standing outside the courtroom as Pu gets sentenced. The verdict, effectively a suspended sentence, is rare in such a political case in China, and some analysts said it might suggest court’s lack of confidence in the case against Pu.
“Pu will not have to immediately go to prison, but he is still not a free man”, his lawyer Mo Shaoping told AFP.
Xinhua claimed Pu had admitted the crimes in court and repented, but his lawyers said he only apologised for being impolite and insisted he had not broken any laws.
“He never should have been prosecuted in the first place”, said Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch.
The case against Pu was based on seven tweets, which criticized officials and questioned government policy in the mainly Muslim north-western region of Xinjiang.
Human rights organization, Amnesty International, was happy with the suspended sentence but denounced the guilty verdict. He was detained in May 2014, the day after attending a seminar with other activists on the Tiananmen Square massacre. He was the most prominent activist swept up in what rights groups say is the most severe clampdown on dissent in two decades in China.
Pu was active in defending free speech and represented activist artist Ai Weiwei.
At Pu’s trial on 14 December, unidentified individuals and police manhandled foreign journalists, diplomats and his supporters outside the court.
Pu’s closed-door trial in Beijing lasted three hours last Monday.
But Mr Shang said his client had done no such thing, telling journalists he told the court he had broken no law.
“China’s judicial authorities have been dealing with these cases according to law and the person involved accepted the verdict of the court”, Hong Lei, a foreign ministry spokesman, said at a regular briefing.
His family said he had pleaded not guilty to all charges.
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The lawyer regretted that Pu’s guilty verdict “can only be interpreted as a trend, in which, the [state’s] control over speech has worsened”. Police took away more than 20 supporters outside the courthouse, and have since put four of them under criminal detention on unknown charges.
