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Date: 22 Dec., 2015 Subject: SCMP: Chinese rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang convicted, but to be releas ed soon after receiving three-year suspended jail sentence

South China Morning Post Breaking News

Chinese rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang convicted, but to be released soon after receiving three-year suspended jail sentence He was convicted of charges of stirring ethnic hatred and provoking trouble

PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 22 December, 2015, 10:26am UPDATED : Tuesday, 22 December, 2015, 1:16pm Verna Yu [email protected]

Pu Zhiqiang, one of China’s most outspoken human rights lawyers, was given a three-year suspended jail sentence on Tuesday, state media reported, but he is likely to be released soon.

The Beijing Second Intermediate People’s Court found Pu, 50, guilty of “inciting ethnic hatred” and “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”, but he is expected to be able to go home because he has already spent 19 months in police detention and could serve the rest of his sentence outside the jail.

His lawyers could not be immediately reached, but fellow rights lawyer Liang Xiaojun said the suspended sentence meant if Pu committed the offences again within the next three years, he would be returned to jail to serve out the rest of his sentence.

Another rights lawyer, Liu Xiaoyuan, said Pu’s lawyer’s licence would be revoked as the court accused him of having intended to commit the crimes.

The ordeal of Pu, famed for defending dissidents and rights activists, is widely seen as a political case to silence him and to warn other rights advocates against speaking up.

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Amnesty International said the suspended prison sentence was “a deliberate attempt by the Chinese authorities to shackle a champion of freedom of expression”.

Xinhua news agency said the court had handed down a light sentence after Pu “pro-actively confessed to his crimes and showed remorse”. It said Pu would not appeal against the sentence.

The conviction was based on the content of seven microblog messages sent 12 times that mostly contained remarks that were critical of the government’s handling of an ethnic conflict in Kunming, Yunnan province, last year and sarcastic comments about two officials.

Xinhua quoted the court as saying that between January 2012 and May 2014, Pu posted messages eight times on various Weibo accounts to “stir ethnic relations and incite ethnic hatred”. It said his messages were re- tweeted 2,500 times and commented on 1,300 times, and therefore had “provoked internet users’ strong ethnic hatred and confrontation feelings”, while his behaviour had “posed social danger that has reached a serious level”.

The court said Pu had continued to post “provocative” messages regardless of warnings from the internet censor and concluded that his behaviour amounted to “inciting ethnic hatred”.

On the charge of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”, the court said that since 2011 Pu had posted microblog messages four times to insult “various people” and his messages were re-tweeted 900 times and attracted 500 comments, “sparking large numbers of insulting commentaries and negative rhetoric”.

It said this had resulted in “psychological damage”, had “lowered [people’s] opinions of society”, and created “chaos in the cyberspace” and a “bad influence in society” and his behaviour had “gravely disrupted social order” so his actions amounted to the charge.

Xinhua said Pu had apologised and showed his willingness to accept

2 20151222a punishment during the trial and claimed that Pu told the court that through his ordeal, “he has experienced the progress of rule of law, the improvement of the law and progress of society”.

However, his lawyers said earlier that Pu insisted his actions did not warrant the charges in his trial last Monday, although he admitted that he had a “sharp, caustic and sometimes vulgar” writing style online.

Pu, who suffers from diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure, had been detained for 19 months without trial, with no family access.

Pu was taken into custody in May last year after he attended a private gathering to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown.

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