Chinese Authorities Sentence Journalist to 10 Years in Prison

May 24, 2005

Xinhua reported that on April 30 the Changsha Intermediate People's Court sentenced Shi Tao to 10 years imprisonment and two years deprivation of political rights for disclosing "state secrets." According to Xinhua, the state secrets in question consisted of information he learned at a meeting of the editorial board of the newspaper at which he worked.

Xinhua reported that on April 30 the Changsha Intermediate People's Court sentenced Shi Tao to 10 years imprisonment and two years deprivation of political rights for disclosing "state secrets." According to Xinhua, the state secrets in question consisted of information he learned at a meeting of the editorial board of the newspaper at which he worked.

Guo Guoting, Shi's attorney, was not able to defend Shi because Chinese authorities revoked Guo's law license on February 24, and then placed him under house arrest in mid-March. Shi was detained in November 2004 as part of a Chinese government crackdown on writers, journalists, and intellectuals. According to Reporters Without Borders Shi was officially arrested on January 28, for sending the online newspaper Minzhu Tongxun the abstract, or summary, of a document that Chinese authorities sent to his newspaper "warning journalists of the dangers of social destabilisation and risks linked to the return of certain dissidents on the occasion of the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre."

China's state secrets laws, and national security laws in general, are extremely broad and vague, and Chinese authorities often use them to prosecute writers and journalists for legitimately exercising their freedom of expression. The Chinese authorities' policies regarding state secrets contributed to the 2003 SARS crisis.