China jails journalist Gao Yu (71) accused of leaking state secrets

A Chinese court has jailed the 71-year-old journalist Gao Yu for seven years after she was found guilty of leaking an internal Communist Party document to foreigners, part of a growing clampdown on free speech in China.

Ms Gao, a freelance journalist who has written strident articles criticising the government, maintains her innocence and said she would appeal the sentence, which was given by Beijing No 3 Intermediate Court after a trial behind closed doors.

She had earlier made a confession on TV which she subsequently withdrew, saying she had been coerced after authorities threatened her son, who had been taken into custody and later released.

The state secrets relate to “Document No 9”, which warned senior members against “seven mistaken ideologies”, including the “universal values” of human rights, said one of Ms Gao’s lawyers, Shang Baojun.

This is the third time Ms Gao has been jailed on charges stemming from her activism and for leaking state secrets.

She started her career at the government news agency China News Service, eventually becoming deputy editor of Economics Weekly, which was closed for its reporting of the prodemocracy movement in 1989. She was jailed for supporting the protests from June 1989 to August 1990, and again from 1993 to 1999 on charges of "illegally providing state secrets to foreigners", the same charges she was convicted on yesterday.

She is one of 44 journalists behind bars in China, which has more jailed media workers than any other country, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists advocacy group.

Rule of law

China’s foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei told a regular news briefing the trial and verdict were according to the rule of law. “Citizens have always enjoyed all forms of rights accorded to them under the constitution. At the same time, citizens must strictly abide by their obligations under the constitution,” said Mr Hong, adding that other countries had no right to interfere with the decision.

The charges against Ms Gao caused an international outcry and the UN called for her release.

William Nee, China researcher at Amnesty International, described the sentence as "political persecution by the Chinese authorities". "She is the victim of vaguely worded and arbitrary state-secret laws that are used against activists as part of the authorities' attack on freedom of expression. Gao Yu is a prisoner of conscience, solely imprisoned for challenging the views of the government. She should be released immediately and unconditionally."

Gao, who won the Unesco/ Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize in 1997, has been held since April 2014.

Appalled

Benjamin Ismail, head of the Reporters Without Borders Asia-Pacific desk, said he was appalled by the verdict and sentence.

“Today, the Chinese authorities ensured that a lie prevails, so we would like to remind them of a truth: for each journalist or blogger they convict and turn into a political prisoner, they create 10 new defenders of freedom of information and media freedom, 10 new activists who will defend the public interest by revealing what the authorities want to cover up.”