Internet Writer Luo Changfu Released After Serving Three Years for Subversion

Chinese authorities in Chongqing have released Internet essayist Luo Changfu from prison following completion of his three-year sentence for inciting subversion of state power, according to a March 16 Boxun article. State security officials detained Luo on March 13, 2003, after he published essays on the Internet calling for the release of Liu Di, the Boxun Web site reported on November 14, 2003. Luo was tried in July 2003 by the Chongqing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court, which sentenced him to three years in prison and one year deprivation of political rights on November 16, 2003.

Luo was detained within days of two other Internet writers - Cai Lujun and Yuan Langsheng - being taken into custody. In its judgment finding Cai guilty of inciting subversion of state power, the court said that Luo and Yuan had been in contact with Cai in connection with forming an online organization. Authorities released Yuan without charges after two weeks, according to a May 16, 2003, Digital Freedom Network article, but sentenced Cai to three years' imprisonment for inciting subversion of state power. The government subsequently sentenced another Internet essayist, Du Daobin, who wrote articles calling for the release of Cai, Yuan, and Luo, to three years' imprisonment and two years' deprivation of political rights "with a reprieve of four years," according to a June 12, 2004, Xinhua article via the People's Daily. For one example of Du's articles, see Please Take Note of Developments in the Three Cases of Yuan Langsheng, Cai Lujun, and Luo Changfu published on the Epoch Times Web site on March 28, 2003.

In addition to his connection with Cai, Luo had also published several articles on the Internet drawing attention to the Chinese government's ongoing detention of another Internet writer, Liu Di. Chinese authorities detained Liu (who writes under the name "Stainless Steel Mouse") in November 2002, and held her until November 2003 without charges after she posted a series of essays on the Internet discussing political reform and criticizing the Party. They subsequently placed her under house arrest in 2004 during the annual meeting of the National People's Congress and on the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen crackdown. Chinese authorities placed Liu Di under 24-hour police surveillance as part of a crackdown on human rights activists in Beijing during the visit of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour to China from August 29 to September 2, 2005, and the eighth European Union-China Summit that took place in Beijing from September 5 to September 7.