The founder of a Chinese website about human rights violations in China was sentenced today to 12 years in prison, which is one of the heaviest sentences handed down to a dissident in recent years.
Huang Qi, who was arrested more than two years ago, was found guilty of "revealing state secrets" and his assets worth 200.000 yuan (26.100 euros) were confiscated, according to a statement from a court in Yangyang, southwest China.
A statement on the court's website did not detail the nature of the secrets Huang allegedly gave, or to whom he gave them.
Huang Qi, (56) is a veteran dissident.
He has been targeted by the Chinese authorities since 2000.
He ran the "64 Tainvang" portal, which has been blocked, to recall the bloody suppression of the Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing in 1989.
He was arrested in 2016 shortly after receiving the Reporters Without Borders and TV5 Mond award for media freedom.
He already received the Reporters Without Borders award for "cyber dissidents" in 2004, since he was convicted four years before that.
He was then the first Chinese opposition figure to be jailed for using the Internet for political purposes.
In 2009, Huang was sentenced again, this time to three years in prison for pointing out the poor condition of school buildings that had collapsed a year earlier in the Sichuan earthquake.
According to organizations for the defense of human rights, Huang Qi is in poor health.
The heaviest sentence for a political opposition member since President Xi Jinping came to power in China was handed down to Qin Yongmin, who was sentenced to 13 years in prison last year for "subversion".
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