Freedom of Expression

Following the forceful police suppression of a demonstration by Uyghurs on July 5 and outbreaks of violence starting that day in Urumqi, Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region (XUAR), the Urumqi Intermediate People's Court held trials on December 22 and 23 for 22 people accused of committing crimes in July, according to reports from Chinese and overseas media. The court found the defendants, who were involved in a total of five cases, guilty of crimes including intentional homicide and robbery, sentencing five to death, five to death with a two-year reprieve, eight to life in prison, and four to prison sentences between 12 and 15 years, according to a December 24 report from the Xinjiang Daily (via Bingtuan Net). Based on the names provided in the article, all of the people sentenced appear to be Uyghur.

In one case, on November 12, 2009, the Gannan (Kanlho) Intermediate People's Court, located in Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture (TAP), Gansu province, sentenced Konchog Tsephel, a Tibetan man who co-founded a Web site on Tibetan arts and culture, to 15 years in prison for "disclosing state secrets," according to a November 16, 2009, International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) report. Information is not available about the Criminal Law (CL) statute under which the court convicted Konchog Tsephel.

Prominent intellectual Liu Xiaobo submitted an appeal of his 11-year sentence to the Beijing High People's Court on December 29, 2009, according to a January 4, 2010, New York Times (NYT) article. Article 196 of the PRC Criminal Procedure Law gives the high court until mid-February (one and a half months after accepting an appeal) to make its decision, although a ruling could come any time before then. Article 196 also allows the high court to extend its time to decide a case by an additional month, but only under special circumstances.

Freedom of Expression

On December 22, 2009, the Jiangsu Provincial High People's Court upheld the 10-year sentence against Guo Quan, formerly a university professor and past member of the state-approved China Democratic League, according to a copy of the court's judgment published by Boxun on January 4, 2010. In October, the Suqian Intermediate People's Court in Jiangsu handed down the sentence, which also included three years' deprivation of political rights, finding that Guo used the Internet to organize an "illegal" political party called the "China New Democracy Party," recruited members for the party, published numerous "reactionary" articles online, called for a seven-day stay-at-home boycott of the government, and sought to "overthrow" the socialist system.

The Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court sentenced prominent intellectual Liu Xiaobo on December 25, 2009, to 11 years in prison for "inciting subversion of state power," a crime under Article 105, Paragraph 2, of the Criminal Law. The court also sentenced Liu to two years' deprivation of political rights upon his release. Human Rights in China released an English translation of the court's verdict on December 30, 2009. The court cited essays Liu had written critical of the Communist Party and China's political system and his participation in Charter 08. The court highlighted Liu's use of the Internet, including his posting of essays online and his e-mailing of the charter and its signatures to overseas Web sites.

The Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court will conduct the trial of prominent intellectual Liu Xiaobo on December 23, 2009, according to a December 21 Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) article. Prosecutors indicted Liu on December 10, according to a December 11 Radio Free Asia (RFA) article. Mo Shaoping, a defense lawyer whose law firm is handling Liu's case, told RFA that the prosecution's indictment alleges that Liu drafted and organized Charter 08, a document originally signed by more than 300 Chinese citizens and which calls for political reform and greater protection of human rights in China. Liu was taken into custody on December 8, 2008, a day before the charter was released. The charter was posted on the Internet and additional persons have signed the document via e-mail.

The Wuhou District People's Court in Chengdu city, Sichuan province, sentenced rights activist Huang Qi on November 23, 2009, to three years in prison for illegal possession of state secrets, according to a New York Times (NYT) article of the same date. Authorities detained Huang in June 2008 after he used his human rights Web site to advocate for parents who lost children in school collapses during the May 2008 Sichuan earthquake. Boxun, a U.S.-based Chinese news Web site, posted a copy of the court's judgment on December 1. The court gave Huang the maximum sentence for violating Article 182, Paragraph 2, of the Criminal Law.