Rights activist Liu Jiacai sentenced for the crime of “inciting subversion of state power.”

On Monday May 11, 2015, human rights activist Liu Jiacai was sentenced to five years in prison for the crime of “inciting subversion of state power” by the Yichang City, Hubei Province Intermediate People’s Court.

Attorney Wu Kuiming represented Liu Jiacai in pleading not guilty, claiming that his actions were protected online freedom of speech that should not be considered a crime. Wu Kuiming said that there were two types of sentencing for the crime of inciting subversion of state power, one an ordinary punishment, the other a heavy penalty reserved for ringleaders. Liu Jiacai’s sentence was the heaviest penalty for the ordinary crime.

In 2013 Liu Jiacai published online his “Li Xiangyang Revenge Announcement” and was arrested and prosecuted. It called for taking violent “bloodbath” revenge against the judiciary for the unjust treatment of Shandong Province human rights attorney Li Xiangyang.

Liu Jiacai was a staff member of the Gezhouba Dam Group. In the 1998-2000 period, his human rights actions included helping laid-off workers collect their wages, demanding the right for their children to go to school, establishing an independent worker’s union, exposing official corruption, and memorializing the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen Massacre. In 2001 he was convicted of “”inciting subversion of state power” and sentenced to surveillance and two years’ deprivation of political rights.

http://news.boxun.com/news/gb/china/2015/05/201505112347.shtml