China upholds five-year sentence for quake activist

Jun 9, 2010, 5:49 GMT

Beijing - China on Wednesday upheld a five-year prison sentence for an activist convicted of subversion after he criticized the ruling Communist Party and compiled a list of children who died in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.

The Sichuan Provincial High People's Court upheld the sentence passed in February by a lower court that convicted Tan Zuoren of 'inciting subversion of state power,' lawyers and supporters said.

Tan appealed the verdict but the court rejected his request for an open hearing.

Police detained Tan's daughter and at least three more of the 50 activists who had gathered outside the court to support him on Wednesday, the Hong Kong-based China Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) reported.

Tan's wife was allowed into the court to hear its verdict on Tan's appeal, CHRD said.

Renee Xia, CHRD's international director, said that by rejecting Tan's appeal the court had 'squandered an opportunity to correct the lower court's harsh and unfair verdict.'

'Mr Tan is yet another victim of the Chinese government's abuse of the legal system to persecute human rights activists,' Xia said in a statement.

Tan had criticized the Communist Party and circulated e-mails urging people to commemorate the military crackdown on democracy protestors in Beijing on June 4, 1989, his lawyers said.

But Tan's main lawyer, Pu Zhiqiang, and other supporters said officials had ordered Tan's arrest because he compiled a list of children who died in the Sichuan earthquake and an independent report on the collapse of school buildings that claimed many of the victims.

Poor construction is believed to have led to the collapses, killing 5,335 children, according to the government. Parents and activists said the number is much higher.

Tan produced his report in cooperation with other activists, including Ai Weiwei, a leading Chinese artist and architect.

Ai underwent surgery in Germany late last year for a cerebral haemorrhage that he said was caused when he was beaten by police in Chengdu while he was supporting Tan during his trial in August.

CHRD on Wednesday urged Tan's 'immediate and unconditional release.'

'We believe Tan has been sentenced to prison for investigating student deaths in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake and for expressing his opinions regarding the Tiananmen Massacre,' the group said, referring to the military crackdown in 1989.

Tan was the second activist sentenced in Chengdu on charges linked to the deaths of children in collapsed school buildings during the Sichuan earthquake, which killed at least 80,000 people.

In November, activist Huang Qi was sentenced to three years in prison for 'illegal possession of state secrets,' a charge apparently linked to his reports of protests by parents of children killed in the earthquake.