{"id":26686,"date":"2012-04-10T12:41:00","date_gmt":"2012-04-10T12:41:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1:10081\/?p=26686 "},"modified":"2012-04-10T12:41:00","modified_gmt":"2012-04-10T12:41:00","slug":"26686-revision-v1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/?p=26686","title":{"rendered":"Disabled Rights Activist Jailed in China"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">China has sentenced disabled human rights lawyer Ni Yulan to two years and eight months in prison on charges of causing a disturbance and committing fraud, prompting complaints by rights activists.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">A Beijing court sentenced the 51-year-old lawyer on Tuesday. Her husband, Dong Jiqin, was also jailed for two years on similar charges.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">Both deny the charges, and their supporters say the charges were intended to silence their criticism of the government. The two were arrested a year ago as part of a wider crackdown on political dissent following anonymous online calls for protests in China after a series of uprisings in Arab countries.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">Sarah Schafer, a Hong Kong-based China researcher with Amnesty International, told VOA the sentence is &#8220;absolutely unfair.&#8221; She charged that Ni Yulan was targeted because she and her husband have been outspoken advocates for victims of land rights violations.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">&#8220;Ni Yulan has suffered countless abuses at the hands of authorities, trying to defend people from forced evictions,&#8221; she said. &#8220;In fact, she herself is a victim of a violent forced eviction, and she began giving aid to other victims to other victims of these types of evictions in 2001.&#8221;<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">Outside the heavily guarded courtroom in suburban Beijing, European Union official Raphael Droszewski read a stateme<\/span><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">nt expressing &#8220;deep concern&#8221; about the sentences and calling for Ni&#8217;s immediate release.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">&#8220;The delegation of the European Union in China is deeply concerned by news of the sentence handed down to human rights defenders Ni Yulan and Dong Jiqin,&#8221; said Droszewski The EU firmly upholds the rights of a person to address any human rights on behalf of individuals or groups, as enshrined in the United Nations declaration on human rights defenders.&#8221;<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">He also said the EU is &#8220;preoccupied with the deterioration of the situation for human rights defenders in China,&#8221; and will continue to closely monitor such cases.<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><\/div><div><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">Ni was jailed in 2002 and 2008 for &#8220;obstructing official business&#8221; and &#8220;harming public property&#8221; after fighting against the government acquisition of her home in Beijing. She says she was tortured while in prison and is now wheelchair-bound.&nbsp;<\/span><\/div><div>&nbsp;<\/div><div><span style=\"color: #2d2d2d; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Lucida Grande', 'Segoe UI', Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; text-align: -webkit-left; font-size: 12pt; background-color: #ffffff; \"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt; \">Continue reading&nbsp;<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/thelede.blogs.nytimes.com\/2011\/12\/05\/journalists-should-be-government-mouthpieces-chinas-state-tv-president-says\/?ref=china#h[]\" style=\"color: #034af3; text-decoration: none; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Lucida Grande', 'Segoe UI', Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: -webkit-left; background-color: #ffffff; \"><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.voanews.com\/english\/news\/China-Jails-Disabled-Rights-Activist-146785665.html\" style=\"text-decoration: none; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Lucida Grande', 'Segoe UI', Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: -webkit-left; background-color: #ffffff; color: #034af3; \"><span style=\"font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; \"><strong>original article<\/strong><\/span><\/a><span style=\"color: #2d2d2d; text-align: -webkit-left; background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Arial; font-size: 12pt; \">.<\/span><span style=\"color: #2d2d2d; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Lucida Grande', 'Segoe UI', Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; text-align: -webkit-left; background-color: #ffffff; \">&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/span><\/div><span style=\"font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', 'Lucida Grande', 'Segoe UI', Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, sans-serif; text-align: -webkit-left; background-color: #ffffff; \"><br \/><\/span><div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&lt;div&gt;Already arrested a year ago, human rights lawyer Ni Yulan was sentenced to two years and eight months on Tuesday on charges of causing a disturbance and committing fraud. &amp;nbsp;Her husband Dong Jiqin also received a sentence of two years for the same charges.&lt;\/div&gt;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ChinaHumanRights","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26686\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}