Authorities Sentence Guo Qizhen to Four Years in Prison for Online Essays

November 3, 2006

The Intermediate People's Court in Cangzhou city, Hebei province, sentenced Internet essayist Guo Qizhen on October 9 to four years' imprisonment and three years' deprivation of political rights for "inciting subversion of state power," a crime under Article 105, Paragraph 2, of the Criminal Law, according to the court judgment (in Chinese, reprinted by Boxun). The court found Guo guilty because he posted more than 30 essays on the U.S.-based Web site Democracy Forum (Minzhu Luntan), with titles such as "Statement Regarding Participating in Lawyer Gao Zhisheng's Hunger Strike Protest Activity," "Let Some Get Rich First While Others Cannot Make a Living," and "Hurry and Save the Children."

The Intermediate People's Court in Cangzhou city, Hebei province, sentenced Internet essayist Guo Qizhen on October 9 to four years' imprisonment and three years' deprivation of political rights for "inciting subversion of state power," a crime under Article 105, Paragraph 2, of the Criminal Law, according to the court judgment (in Chinese, reprinted by Boxun). The court found Guo guilty because he posted more than 30 essays on the U.S.-based Web site Democracy Forum (Minzhu Luntan), with titles such as "Statement Regarding Participating in Lawyer Gao Zhisheng's Hunger Strike Protest Activity," "Let Some Get Rich First While Others Cannot Make a Living," and "Hurry and Save the Children." The court said the essays "attacked and vilified the Chinese government," "harmed state power and the socialist system," and "incited subversion of state power and the overthrow of the socialist system," but did not explain how the essays accomplished these acts. The court rejected Guo's defense that his essays were an exercise of freedom of expression protected under China's Constitution. For more information on Guo, see the CECC's Political Prisoner Database and an earlier CECC analysis on Guo's formal arrest.

Epoch Times reported (in Chinese) on October 18 that Guo said he was beaten during his detention. The report said that Zhao Changqin, Guo's wife, planned to go to the local "letters and visits" (xinfang) office to demand that someone be held accountable for the alleged beating. According to an October 18 Ming Pao Daily article, Zhao said that they would appeal the verdict.

Public security officials first detained Guo on May 12 as he was preparing to join a hunger strike proposed by Gao Zhisheng and other rights defenders to protest abuses against Chinese citizens, according to a July 4 Network of Chinese Human Rights Defenders report. The Cangzhou Public Security Bureau formally arrested Guo on June 6, according to the June 16 opinion that it filed with the Cangzhou People's Procuratorate (in Chinese, reprinted by Boxun). According to the court judgment, the procuratorate indicted Guo on August 25.

For more information on the arrests of other Gao Zhisheng supporters, see a CECC analysis on the arrests of Zhang Jianhong and Chen Shuqing. Beijing officials detained Gao, a lawyer who has represented activists, religious leaders, and writers, on August 15 and initially denied him access to his defense lawyer. They formally arrested him on September 21 on suspicion of "inciting subversion of state power," according to an October 12 Boxun article (in Chinese).

Earlier in 2006, authorities used Article 105, the Criminal Law provision on subversion, to sentence other individuals who published essays on overseas Web sites. For example, Jiangsu authorities sentenced freelance writer Yang Tianshui in May to 12 years' imprisonment for "subversion of state power" and Guizhou authorities sentenced journalist Li Yuanlong in July to 2 years' imprisonment for "inciting subversion of state power." The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD), in a report on its 2004 mission to China (available on the UNWGAD's Country Visits Web page), recommended that the Chinese government halt the use of vague, imprecise, or overly broad criminal law provisions such as "subverting state power" to punish peaceful expression, assembly, and religious practice.