A Chinese court sentenced three activists to prison on Friday. They were accused of attempting to start a non-violent civil rights movement, which is the latest example of the Communist party's intensifying attack on the opposition.
According to The Guardian, activist Tang Jingling received a five-year sentence while Yuan Xinting was given three-and-a-half years of imprisonment and Wang Qingying was given two-and-a-half year sentence. The conviction for "inciting subversion of state power" was handed down by the Guangzhou intermediate people's court, the London-based group said.
Campaigner Patrick Poon also stated that the verdict was a "gross injustice". The men's "peaceful and legitimate work never threatened state security, this is solely about the authorities arbitrarily silencing government critics", he added.
The chief proof used against the three men was the fact that they had read and distributed books about democracy and activism. The issue comes in the middle of a widespread crackdown on human rights activists and lawyers.
The three activists were detained for more than 18 months. They were alleged of studying and distributing five books about non-violent activism, including "From Dictatorship to democracy" by Gene Sharp, and "Organizing: A guide for Grassroots Leaders" by Si Kahn.
The Communist Party does not allow anything it sees as a potential threat to its rule, and a lot of activists have been imprisoned since the President Xi Jinping took office two years ago. In fact, The News claimed that a court in central China's Jiangxi Province handed the sentence to Fu Zhibin, whose book "A History of Brainwashing", criticized the "ideological control" in the country.
He was sentenced to a year and 10 months in prison "running an illegal business", his lawyer Zhang Zanning told AFP. Fu is the newest activist to be jailed in a crackdown on critics of the Communist Party overseen by President Xi Jinping, which has seen hundreds detained and dozens sent to prison.
Moreover, one of the activist's wives, Tang Jingling's wife named Wang Yanfang, confirmed the sentences and told the BBC that it was a "ridiculous verdict". She went on by saying that the law was being used as a front for "political suppression", and that her husband considered the court case "an illegal trial".
For now, authorities have been claiming that the books have been confirmed to have serious political transgressions. But since Tang was a prominent human rights lawyer, he is still trying to fight over his rights as well as the local farmers who take local officials to court for taking their lands illegally.
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