China Rights Activist Gets 3 Years
A Chinese court yesterday sentenced a veteran human- rights campaigner to three years in prison for criticizing the government's response to the 2008 earthquake that killed about 90,000 people.
Web-site manager Huang Qi was accused of illegally possessing state secrets by a court in Chengdu, his wife, Zeng Li, said.
The sentencing came less than
a week after President Obama made an official visit to Beijing and appealed to China's Communist Party rulers to accept that "certain fundamental human rights" are universal.
Huang was detained in June 2008 after posting articles on the Web criticizing the government's response to the quake that struck Sichuan province the previous month.
Huang had also spoken to foreign media about parents' accusations that their children had been crushed in badly built schools, complaints the government attempted to squelch.
Zeng said no details were given about the state-secrets charge, an accusation used by
Chinese leaders to clamp down on dissent.
- Associated Press
