MCLC: cafe owner given 8-year sentence

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: café owner given 8-year sentence
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Source: MYT (11/1/12):
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/02/world/asia/chinese-cafe-owner-given-8-yea
r-sentence-over-online-messages.html

Chinese Cafe Owner Given 8-Year Sentence Over Online Messages
By ANDREW JACOBS 

BEIJING — The owner of an Internet cafe in southwest China was given an
eight-year prison term for criticizing the ruling Communist Party in
online messages and for seeking to establish an opposition party, his wife
said Thursday.

The man, Cao Haibo, 27, of Kunming, the capital of Yunnan Province, was
accused of “subversion of state power” for trying to set up the “China
Republican Party” — an entity that existed on paper, and only for one day.

His wife, Zhang Nian, 23, said he was sentenced on Wednesday but the court
only notified her on Thursday. “It is a very severe punishment and long
sentence,” she said, adding that the trial was held in secret.

The sentencing comes a week before a pivotal series of meetings in Beijing
during which the party will ratify a new generation of leaders.
Mr. Cao’s lawyer, Ma Xiaopeng, told Reuters his client did not fully
understand the risks he was taking when he sent antigovernment messages to
his friends last year. “Cao Haibo does not understand politics in China,”
Mr. Ma said. “We think he’s an immature child; he really did not know that
the party would take it this seriously.”

Ms. Zhang said she and Mr. Cao were married three months before he was
arrested last October. They have a 9-month-old child.
Renee Xia, international director of Chinese Human Rights Defenders,
criticized the prosecution of Mr. Cao, noting that he was detained for
eight months without trial and that even his family was barred from the
proceedings. “Cao’s only ‘crime’ was to chat in an online group, where
members discussed such ideas as democratic reform and constitutional
rights,” she said. “This case is a travesty of justice. It demonstrates,
once again, that China shows only disdain for rule of law.”