CHINA sentenced a veteran dissident writer to 12 years in jail for subversion yesterday, after he posted essays on the internet supporting a movement by exiles to hold free elections.

The sentence on Yang Tianshui, 45, is one of the harshest to be handed down to a political dissident since the trials that came after the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown on students demanding greater democracy. It underscores the determination of the ruling Communist Party to brook no opposition and to maintain a tight grip on the internet.

Yang is one of several writers and dissidents to be tried over the content of internet postings. He has no plans to appeal because he regards his trial as illegal. Li Jianqiang, his lawyer, said: “He is most dissatisfied but he had expected such a sentence. He refused to answer questions because he does not recognise the legality of the court.”

Yang was detained after he posted essays on the internet in support of Velvet Action of China — a movement named after the Velvet Revolution that overthrew the Communist Government in the former Czechoslovakia. “He was freely expressing his opinion and posed no threat to state security. We argue that his actions were entirely within the Constitution,” Mr Li said.

The court, in the eastern province of Jiangsu, also found Yang guilty of plotting to form provincial chapters of the outlawed China Democracy Party and of receiving financial assistance from overseas. He is a member of the China chapter of International PEN, the movement founded to defend freedom of expression.

His lawyer said that the sentence was particularly severe because the writer already had a record. Yang served a ten-year jail term on charges of counter-revolution from 1990 to 2000 after he voiced opposition to the military crackdown on the student protesters in Tiananmen Square. He had faced a maximum sentence of death on the charges against him. “We think even a one-year sentence is too much. This is very unfair,” Mr Li said.

China this week also revived a case against a detained researcher for The New York Times, less than two months after earlier charges of leaking state secrets were dropped. It was not clear if prosecutors planned to bring the same charges against Zhao Yan. The prosecutors had used the term “resuming criminal investigation and prosecution” to describe their action. Mo Shaoping, Mr Zhao’s lawyer, said that this move had no legal basis under Chinese criminal procedure. He said: “Even they admitted that they could not find an article of the law to cite for the retransfer of the case.”

The string of charges against journalists and writers reflects the policy of President Hu to track down those who broadcast dissenting views to a wider audience.

Regulations on internet content are regularly tightened and websites closed. More journalists are in jail in China than in any other country, with the number behind bars estimated at more than 40 — most sentenced on security or subversion charges.

Writers in the dock

Yang Xiaoqing, a journalist, pleaded not guilty yesterday in a court in central Hunan province to charges of extortion. He argued that the evidence against him had been fabricated by a local Communist Party official whom he had accused of corruption

Li Yuanlong, 45, a journalist in the poor southern province of Guizhou, pleaded innocent last week to subversion charges linked to political essays that he had posted on overseas websites. Mr Li’s essays, written under the pen name “Night Wolf”, were published on websites that are banned in China

Li Jianping, a freelance journalist, faces charges of subversion for his writings posted on the internet

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