{"id":16640,"date":"2017-12-27T00:46:39","date_gmt":"2017-12-26T16:46:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinaworker.info\/?p=16640"},"modified":"2017-12-28T21:42:21","modified_gmt":"2017-12-28T13:42:21","slug":"vicious-eight-year-jail-sentence-for-chinese-dissident-wu-gan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinaworker.info\/en\/2017\/12\/27\/16640\/","title":{"rendered":"Eight year jail sentence for Chinese dissident Wu Gan"},"content":{"rendered":"

State using systematic frame-ups and \u2018carrot and stick\u2019 methods to extract confessions<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Adam N. Lee, chinaworker.info<\/p>\n

On 26 December, the blogger Wu Gan, known by his online nickname Super Vulgar Butcher, was sentenced to eight years in prison by a court in Tianjin. This was the harshest sentence to be passed so far in a state crackdown on activism that began more than two years ago. It is common practice for China to hold trials of high profile dissidents during the Christmas period, to minimise international media coverage.<\/p>\n

Wu was arrested in May 2015, two months before a major crackdown was launched against a group of around 250 lawyers and activists. Known as the \u2018709 incident\u2019, these mass arrests marked an escalation of state repression under \u2018strongman\u2019 ruler Xi Jinping which has since further intensified. China is currently experiencing its most severe repression since the post-1989 crackdown. Wu\u00a0worked for the Beijing Fengrui law centre which was a major target of the\u00a0\u2018709\u2019 crackdown.<\/p>\n

Refused to plead guilty<\/strong><\/p>\n

Unlike many other arrested dissidents, Wu Gan refused to plead guilty to charges of \u201csubverting state power\u201d. The court\u2019s sentence was meant to send an unmistakable signal to anyone who would dare to challenge the CCP (so-called Communist) regime\u2019s authority, his lawyer told AFP.<\/p>\n

Wu was an outspoken social media figure whose biting criticisms of Chinese society and politics, often laced with strong language, irked the regime and its censorship machine. He championed many cases of human rights abuses in China. The prosecution accused him of \u201chyping up hot incidents\u201d and \u201cspreading fake information.\u201d<\/p>\n

The vicious sentence imposed on Wu is indicative of a wider pattern as the regime becomes more repressive. In recent years, the state has used humiliating televised \u2018confessions\u2019 to provide justification for its repressive policies. These \u2018confessions\u2019 not only obviate the need for actual proof, but are also scripted by prosecutors to include denunciations of \u201cforeign forces\u201d and tributes to the \u201cwisdom and fairness\u201d of the CCP dictatorship. The confessions have therefore become an important ingredient in the state\u2019s nationalistic and authoritarian propaganda.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will be convicted not because I am really guilty, but because of my refusal to accept a government-appointed lawyer, plead guilty in a televised propaganda confession, and for exposing torture, mistreatment and violence and prosecutorial misconduct,\u201d Wu said in a statement released through his lawyers ahead of his trial.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Protest in support of Wu Gan in Hong Kong [HKFP]<\/figcaption><\/figure>Political trials<\/strong><\/p>\n

Wu\u2019s refusal to incriminate himself was clearly the reason for this especially severe punishment. As his lawyer Yan Xin pointed out the sentence was intended to set \u201can example so other activists will say they are guilty when accused of crimes against the state\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s clear [Wu] was sentenced so harshly because he refused to plead guilty,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The political nature of this verdict is illustrated by a very different sentence passed down on the same day for another dissident, the former human rights lawyer Xie Yang. Xie pleaded guilty to \u201cinciting subversion of state power\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe starkly different outcomes in the cases of Wu Gan and Xie Yang is an example of the state\u2019s prosecution machine using a carrot and stick approach in order to force confessions from its victims,\u201d said Vincent Kolo of chinaworker.info. \u201cClearly, these are show trials worthy of Joseph Stalin,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Xie, who was also arrested in the 2015 crackdown and released on bail after his trial in May, was spared further jail time, evidently as a reward for self-incrimination.<\/p>\n

Nationalist propaganda<\/strong><\/p>\n

The court in Changsha alleged that Xie had been \u201clong influenced by anti-China forces\u201d and had \u201ctravelled overseas several times to receive training organised by anti-China forces and seek links with subversive forces, both domestic and overseas.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a video shown on the court\u2019s social media page, Xie retracted an earlier statement that he had been tortured. Previously he accused police of using \u201csleep deprivation, long interrogations, beatings, death threats, humiliations\u201d. This \u2013 very credible \u2013 account led a number of international human rights campaigners to petition on Xie\u2019s behalf, including Amnesty International which designated him a prisoner of conscience.<\/p>\n

Yet at his trial Xie claimed, \u201cOn the question of torture, I produced a negative effect on and misled the public, and I again apologise.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

State using systematic frame-ups and \u2018carrot and stick\u2019 methods to extract confessions<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":16641,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[132,124],"tags":[9939,8303,174,9941,9935,915,9937],"class_list":{"0":"post-16640","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-china","8":"category-news","9":"tag-709-crackdown","10":"tag-amnesty-international","11":"tag-china-2","12":"tag-televised-confessions","13":"tag-wu-gan","14":"tag-xi-jinping","15":"tag-xie-yang"},"yoast_head":"\nEight year jail sentence for Chinese dissident Wu Gan - China Worker<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/chinaworker.info\/en\/2017\/12\/27\/16640\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Eight year jail sentence for Chinese dissident Wu Gan - 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