Update | Jailing of Chinese journalist Gao Yu for leaking secrets ‘part of push to silence critics’
Lawyers for defendant condemn guilty verdict in state secrets case, saying decision based on coercion and unfounded allegations
The seven-year jail sentence handed down on Friday to Gao Yu, a 71-year-old mainland journalist known for her hard-hitting reports on elite politics, was widely condemned as another move to muzzle dissent in the ongoing crackdown on government critics.
The United States yesterday also said her jailing was “part of a disturbing pattern” of actions against those who question Beijing’s policies, and urged China to free Gao.
The Beijing No 3 Intermediate Court said Gao “illegally provided overseas personnel with state secrets” and convicted her on the charge of leaking state secrets abroad, according to the court’s microblog. She would also be stripped of her political rights for a year after her release, it said.
She has been muzzled. When she is out she will be nearly 80. What can she do?
People familiar with Gao speculate that the authorities have long held a grudge against her for her political writings and wanted to punish her.
Her lawyer, Mo Shaoping, said the verdict was “wrong” because the court failed to take into consideration that Gao’s confession on state television last May was coerced because of threats made against her son. He was initially detained along with her but was later released.
Mo also said that even though the prosecution produced no evidence to support its allegations that Gao used Skype software to send an internal Communist Party memo called Document No 9 to the US-based news website Mingjing in July, 2013, the court still accepted this as truth. Mingjing said on its website on Friday that the allegation was untrue; it obtained the document in June, long after it had been circulated online.
The verdict also said Gao obtained a photocopy of Document No 9 from Yao Jianfu, a retired party official and policy researcher, in June 2013 and alleged that while she knew it was state secret, she still sent an electronic version to Mingjing founder Ho Pin.