BEIJING — Prominent Chinese human rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang was sentenced to 4 1/2 years in prison on the charge of subversion of state power Monday, more than three years after he was detained in a sweeping crackdown on the legal profession. “Wang Quanzhang has never committed a crime, but they still forcibly charged him with a crime,” Li said. Rights groups condemned the verdict, with Amnesty International China researcher Doriane Lau calling it a “gross injustice.”“It’s outrageous that Wang Quanzhang is being punished for peacefully standing up for human rights in China. Human Rights Watch said the sentence made a “mockery of the ‘rule of law”‘ being championed by the ruling Communist Party under President Xi Jinping. The crackdown made clear that human rights lawyers would come to face the kinds of charges previously reserved for those they defended.

Source: National Post January 29, 2019 04:41 UTC