BEIJING — Confined to house arrest for seven months, Chinese activist Hu Jia still managed to use the Internet and telephone to chronicle the harassment of dissidents in his country before he was hauled off to jail in December.
His conviction and sentencing on subversion charges Thursday is the latest indication that China’s leadership intends to clamp down hard on dissent ahead of this summer’s Olympic Games in Beijing.
Hu, one of China’s most prominent human-rights advocates, was given 3 1/2 years in prison for “inciting state subversion,” said his lawyer, Li Fangping. The evidence against Hu included five Internet articles he wrote and two interviews he gave to foreign media, Li said.
The sentence, though lighter than the five years expected, “is still unacceptable,” Li said. Beijing routinely uses the charge of subversion to imprison dissidents for years.
A longtime critic of the government, Hu has been involved in civil-liberties issues, from AIDS awareness to environmental rights and Tibet. In recent years, while largely under house arrest, he served as a hub linking activists across China with the outside world.
Last fall, Hu and activist lawyer Teng Biao authored an article accusing Beijing of failing to live up to a pledge made when bidding for the Olympics that it would improve human rights.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called Hu’s conviction “deeply disturbing to the United States.” Speaking while in Romania, she said putting Hu in jail was not in the interest of human rights — or of China.
John Kamm, whose San Francisco-based Dui Hua Foundation focuses on political prisoners in China, said he thinks Chinese leaders are taking a hard line on criticism because of the unrest in Tibet.
State Department spokesman Tom Casey said China “had an opportunity to put its best foot forward” with the Olympics approaching.
“It has been disturbing to us that in this case someone who has been making efforts to engage in discussion of legitimate issues in the Chinese political system has not only not been allowed to do so but has been sentenced for those efforts,” Casey said.
