Chinese Internet writer charged with subversion

BEIJING (Reuters) – A Chinese Internet writer has been
charged with attempting to “subvert state power” for backing a
movement by exiled dissidents to hold free elections for a new
democratic government, his lawyer said on Thursday.

Yang Tianshui, 45, faces up to 15 years in prison for
posting essays on the Internet supporting the “Velvet Action of
China,” Attorney Li Jianqiang said by telephone.

Named after the “Velvet Revolution” that peacefully
overthrew communism in the former Czechoslovakia, the movement
held an online ballot for government leaders last year. But it
attracted scant interest, with just over 500 people casting a
vote.

The trial of Yang, who has been in custody since last
December, is due to be in Nanjing, capital of the eastern
coastal province of Jiangsu, in May.

Prosecutors could not immediately be reached for comment.

If convicted, Yang, a member of the China chapter of
International PEN, would be the second writer to be jailed this
year.

At least five writers were jailed for up to 10 years last
year as part of a government crackdown on free speech,
according to the China chapter of International PEN, an
association founded in Britain in 1921 to defend freedom of
speech.

Yang was also accused of illegally receiving overseas
financial assistance and plotting to form the Jiangsu and Anhui
provincial chapters of the outlawed China Democracy Party, the
lawyer said.

Yang has already served 10 years in prison for
“counter-revolutionary” crimes, or subversion. He was released
in 2000.