(RSF/IFEX) – On 11 June 2004, a Xiaogan court (central province of Hubei) sentenced cyber-dissident Du Daobin to four years of house arrest and a two-year privation of his civil liberties for “inciting subversion of the state”. Du Daobin was arrested on 28 October 2003 for posting articles on the Internet advocating democracy and respect […]
(RSF/IFEX) – On 11 June 2004, a Xiaogan court (central province of Hubei) sentenced cyber-dissident Du Daobin to four years of house arrest and a two-year privation of his civil liberties for “inciting subversion of the state”. Du Daobin was arrested on 28 October 2003 for posting articles on the Internet advocating democracy and respect for human rights.
While acknowledging the lenience of the sentence compared to the much longer jail terms usually imposed on cyber-dissidents in China, RSF has dismissed the charges against Du Daobin as “baseless and arbitrary.”
“This is a false victory,” RSF said. “It allows Du to leave prison but it puts him under such a degree of police surveillance that his freedom is illusory. This sentence aims to silence a human rights activist and at the same time appease those in China and abroad who criticised his imprisonment.”
Du Daobin’s lawyer, Mo Shaoping, said neither he nor Du Daobin were allowed to speak during the trial, which lasted only 15 minutes. Du Daobin was allowed to go home but will have to report to the police each week for the next four years. Mo Shaoping said his client “acknowledges having posted 26 essays on the Internet but refuses to admit that this is a crime, and still less that it is a crime of subversion.”
RSF has meanwhile learned that Chinese academic Liu Xiaobo, whose whereabouts had been unknown since 28 May, the eve of the Tiananmen Square massacre anniversary, was reachable at his home on 11 June, although his Internet connection remains cut. Along with some 100 other Chinese intellectuals, Liu Xiaobo had issued an appeal to the Chinese authorities for Du Daobin’s release in February (see IFEX alert of 27 May 2004).