Chinese Dissident Sentenced

Xie Changfa (谢长发) of the China Democracy Party has been sentenced to 13 years in jail for “subversion”. He was accused of plotting to overthrow China’s socialist system and subvert state power. Xie had been detained in June last year after trying to set up a party meeting in Changsha (长沙), Hunan Province, reports the BBC.

Radio Taiwan International (RTI)  reports that Xie published an article after the Sichuan Earthquake last year, criticizing shabby engineering as causes for many school buildings collapsing.

Xie, now 58, was with the Workers Autonomous Federation (工人自治聯合會, or 工自聯) in 1989, reports RTI. Back then, he was sentenced to three years of reeducation through labor (勞教, usually an administrative form of detention which avoids legal  procedures).

____________

Related:
Origins and Consequences of the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre, World Socialist Website, June 4, 2009