2015-02-13
A court hands down lengthy prison terms to relatives and supporters of Long Baorong in southerm China’s Hunan province, Feb. 9, 2015.
(Photo courtesy of CHRD)
Authorities in the central Chinese province of Hunan have handed down jail terms of up to 25 years to the relatives and friends of a former ethnic minority official after he criticized corruption in his local government, an overseas rights group said on Friday.
Long Baorong, a popular leader among the Miao ethnic minority who had published an article highly critical of official corruption in July 2010, died soon after being released from jail on medical parole in July 2012.
A month later, police moved to arrest the activist’s son-in-law Long Xianyuan and his brother Long Xianjiang, on charges of involvement in “a criminal syndicate,” as well as some 50 other members of the same community.
Long Xianyuan was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment on Monday by a court of Hunan’s Jishan city for “participating in a criminal syndicate,” while Long Xianjiang was jailed for “organizing and leading a criminal syndicate,” the Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) group, which translates and collates reports from Chinese rights groups, said in a statement.
The brothers were also found guilty of “illegal possession of firearms,” “fraud in obtaining loans,” “forced trade,” “intentional injury,” “gathering a crowd to disrupt public order,” and “drug trafficking,” CHRD said in an e-mailed statement.
It said 25 others, the majority of them also ethnic Miao, or Hmong, were handed shorter jail terms for similar offenses by the Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture Intermediate People’s Court.
All 27 defendants were tried at the same time in a case that was initially dismissed by the Xiangxi Tujia court at district level.
Tortured by police
At the time, defense lawyers Ma Gangquan and Wang Quanping had argued that their clients had been tortured by police to obtain the confessions that underpinned the state prosecutor’s case.
“Both brothers had told the lawyers that police frequently beat them to extract confessions,” CHRD said.
On one occasion, Long Xianyuan was suspended from the ceiling by his hands for four days in the Fenghuang County Detention Center, where he was repeatedly beaten during interrogation to prevent him from falling asleep or fainting, and that he almost died, the group said.
“Many of the 50 originally detained in connection to the case reportedly also suffered torture,” CHRD said in an e-mailed statement.
The lawyers protested and filed complaints at the Xiangxi Prefecture People’s Procuratorate, Politics and Law Committee, and local People’s Congress, demanding a judicial review of the court’s illegal admission of evidence obtained by torture.
The case was later dismissed, but state prosecutors issued a repeat indictment in July 2014, which eventually led to Monday’s sentences.
