China sentences activist to four years in prison

BEIJING--A Beijing court sentenced one of China's most prominent rule-of-law advocates to four years in prison on Sunday, bringing to a close the most closely watched trial of a Chinese dissident in years.

Xu Zhiyong, 40 years old, was found guilty of disturbing public order, according to a short statement posted to the official microblog feed of the Beijing First Intermediate People's Court.

The judgment comes less than a week after a one-day trial during which Mr. Xu was accused of organizing a series of small protests over corruption and access to education in Beijing early last year. Mr. Xu and his lawyer stayed mostly silent during the trial to protest what they said was a flawed legal process.

Mr. Xu hadn't been allowed to call any witnesses and others accused of involvement in the protests were tried separately in violation of Chinese law, according to his lawyer, Zhang Qingfang. "You've wiped out the Chinese legal system's last shred of dignity," Mr. Xu told the court after the sentence was read, according to Mr. Zhang.

The Beijing High People's Court, which is responsible for answering questions from foreign media, hasn't responded to repeated requests for comment.

Meantime, the U.S. condemned the court's action. "We are concerned that today's conviction is retribution for Xu's public campaign to expose official corruption and for the peaceful expression of his views," said Daniel Delk, second secretary in the political section at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. He added that the U.S. saw the conviction as part of a larger pattern of detaining and arresting critics of Beijing's policies and actions.

The U.S. called on Beijing to release Mr. Xu and other political prisoners immediately, Mr. Delk said. The Chinese government should also guarantee the freedoms "to which they are entitled under China's international human rights commitments," he said. China has signed but not ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Mr. Xu, a legal scholar who was once a visiting scholar at Yale University, is the founder of the New Citizens Movement, a loosely organized civic group that advocates for greater government transparency and better access to education, among other issues. Mr. Xu, who advocated pushing reform through the peaceful application of public pressure, is considered a moderate among Chinese activists.

"It's a message that has been sent to activists and to civil society in general that organized dissent--no matter how moderate--will not be tolerated by the current leadership," Maya Wang, a Hong Kong-based researcher at Human Rights Watch, said of the sentence.

Prior to the judgment, many had assumed Mr. Xu would be given the maximum five-year sentence. "Personally, I think the court was purposefully trying to show that it still has a little bit of benevolence, so it was four years instead of five," Mr. Zhang said of the sentence.

Ms. Wang of Human Rights Watch argued that the sentence was still at the heavy end of the spectrum. "I don't think it makes much of a difference in terms of the effect it has," she said.

The government has cracked down hard on the New Citizens Movement, detaining or arresting at least 17 members of the group. Six others are expected to stand trial in Beijing this month.

Mr. Zhang said he believed Mr. Xu should appeal, but said he hadn't discussed it yet with his client. The activist has 10 days to decide whether to challenge the ruling in a higher court.