China jails activist who exposed birth control abuses

BEIJING: China on Thursday sentenced a blind activist who exposed forced abortions and other abuses of the nation's one-child policy to over four years in jail, prompting outrage from his wife and supporters.

A court in east China's Shandong province sentenced Chen Guangcheng, 34, to four years and three months on charges of "wilfully damaging property and organising a mob to disturb traffic," the Xinhua news agency said.

"This is completely unreasonable and against the law," Chen's chief lawyer Xu Zhiyong, who was barred from attending the half-day trial on Friday last week, said.

"This definitely affects China's image and its claims as a country ruled by law."

Chen ran into trouble with authorities in Shandong's Linyi city last year after accusing them of forcing many women to be sterilized and have abortions as late as eight months into their pregnancy. 

China's controversial population control policy that has been in place for the past 25 years is aimed at restricting urban couples to having one child and rural parents to two. 

The central government officially condones only economic sanctions against violators of the one-child policy but human rights groups have long complained that much harsher penalties are regularly carried out.

China's national family planning agency said after Chen's expose that Linyi authorities had indeed carried out some extreme measures and promised disciplinary action, but no punishments have been made public.

Instead Chen, a self-taught lawyer, was formally charged in June this year after villagers protesting police abuse of him clashed with authorities in February and March. 

Chinese activists and human rights groups have repeatedly said the charges were laid against Chen to silence and punish him for exposing the violations of the one-child policy.

Chen's lawyer and family said on Thursday that Chen's trial should have been cancelled when he rejected the court-appointed lawyers.

They maintained the verdict, which they only learned about from foreign journalists, was a gross violation of China's laws.

Six villagers arrested with Chen on the same charges have all been released, including three who were sent home Thursday, a clear sign that the authorities wanted to target Chen for his boldness, his wife, Yuan Weijin, said.

"This shows they justed wanted to seek revenge against Chen Guangcheng because he spoke out against the savagery of the family planning officials," Yuan said.

"I want to tell the world Guangcheng is innocent. He carried out a lot of investigations and he reported what happened to the victims, some of whom are our relatives. I will continue to stand by him."

She said his family would appeal the sentence.

Chen's plight has received international attention for revealing the continuing abuses of China's one-child policy, as well as Beijing's lack of tolerance for rights defenders. 

Time magazine this year named Chen one of the world's 100 most influential people.

Human rights experts said Chen's case appeared to be part of a government-ordered crackdown against a growing number of lawyers and rights defenders who are speaking out against injustices.

"The purpose of this is also to send a message that the state does not accept legal constraints, legal challenges to its actions," said Nicholas Bequelin, a China researcher for Human Rights Watch.

Well-known human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng was also arrested this month. He had demanded Chinese leaders stop persecuting members of the banned Falungong spiritual movement.

Meanwhile, a court is scheduled to announce Friday the verdict for New York Times researcher Zhao Yan.

Zhao was detained in 2004 and charged with leaking state secrets after the paper correctly reported that former president Jiang Zemin was about to step down as the country's top military leader.