MCLC: Shen Yongping gets prison sentence

[MCLC LIST]

MCLC LIST
Shen Yongping gets prison sentence
Source: NYT (12/30/14)
Prison Sentence for Maker of Documentary on Chinese Constitutional Rule
By EDWARD WONG
A Chinese filmmaker who made a documentary on the Chinese Constitution and efforts to get the ruling Communist Party and the government to abide by constitutional law was sentenced on Tuesday by a Beijing district court to one year in prison for running an “illegal business,” his lawyer said.
The filmmaker, Shen Yongping, was detained in April and formally arrested on June 4, the 25th anniversary of the military crackdown on student-led protesters in 1989. Many Chinese liberals were detained around around that time this year, and most have since been released.
The court hearing for Mr. Shen began on Dec. 12. In a telephone interview, his lawyer, Zhang Xuezhong, called the verdict and sentencing “nonsense” and said Mr. Shen had not made his documentary, titled “A Hundred Years of Constitutionalism,” for profit. He said Mr. Shen had posted the video online to be downloaded for free and had given away hundreds of DVDs to people who had contributed money for the documentary’s production.
Mr. Shen has been kept in a detention center in the Chaoyang district of Beijing, and Mr. Zhang said he was likely to remain there. If officials count his one-year sentence as having started with his detention in April, then he could be released in four months, Mr. Zhang said.
After Xi Jinping assumed power in November 2012, as the Communist Party chief and later the nation’s president, the authorities began a crackdown on liberal Chinese advocating constitutional rule. People’s Daily, the main party newspaper, published editorials criticizing any such calls. Lately, party leaders have been saying China should be governed according to constitutional law, but there have been no noticeable moves to enforce the Constitution.
Kiki Zhao contributed research.
by denton.2 at osu.edu on December 31, 2014
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