Chinese Democracy Activist Sentenced for Subversion

A former Chinese judge and university professor has been found guilty of “subversion of state power” and given a 10-year prison sentence. Guo Quan had challenged China’s one-party rule.

Guo had been detained several times since 2007 for things like posting articles on the Internet that called for a democratic system in China. In 2008, he founded the New Democracy Party of China.

Guo’s online postings eventually became a target of China’s Internet police, and he was fired from his job at Nanjing Normal University. Last November, he was arrested in Nanjing and has been detained ever since.

On Friday, the Suqian Intermediate People’s Court in Jiangsu Province found Guo guilty of so-called “subversion of state power.” The ill-defined charge is often used by the communist regime to suppress political dissidents.

One legal expert told Sound of Hope Radio that the verdict is against China’s own constitution.

[Professor Zhang Zanning, Chinese Law Expert]:
“This is like the modern literary inquisition. Legally, it doesn’t have a foot to stand on. Doesn’t China’s constitution allow the freedom of expression and the freedom of association? So this verdict violates the constitution.”

(NTDTV)