Prominent Chinese activist bags 8-yr jail term for subversion

Wu Gan, a prominent Chinese human rights activist has been slammed with an eight-year jail term for subversion- a sentence regarded as the harshest against a human rights activist following a crackdown that began two years ago.

Best known by the online alias Super Vulgar Butcher, Wu who said he planned to appeal against the sentence has been held since 2015, when authorities started to arrest and question hundreds of lawyers and activists in a crackdown.

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While convicting the activist, the court in Tianjin said he was “dissatisfied with the current system of governance, and that gradually produced thoughts of subverting state power”.

The court also accused said he “spread fake information” and “insulted others online”.

Mr Wu had in the past taken up the causes of those he saw as victims of state power, including the case of a rape victim who had killed her assailant, a Communist Party official, by stabbing him with a fruit knife.

He also fought for justice on behalf of four men who claimed that they had been wrongfully jailed for murder.

 

 

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