New York, July 23, 2014–Chinese authorities today sentenced a blogger to more than six years in prison, according to news reports. Dong Rubin, a businessman who has criticized the ruling Communist Party in his blogs, has been in prison since September 2013.
A Wuhua district court in the southwestern Yunnan province convicted Dong of conducting “illegal business operations” and “fabricating and spreading online rumors for economic gain,” according to news reports. He was given a six-and-a-half-year prison term and fined 350,000 yuan (US$56,000). Hou Peng, the general manager of Dong’s Internet consulting company, was sentenced to three years in jail and ordered to pay 50,000 yuan (US$8,000), reports said. The Associated Press reported that Hou received a reprieve from his prison sentence.
The official state news agency Xinhua said Dong and Hou were convicted of fabricating blog posts at the request of business clients and that Dong was also convicted of “creating disturbances” by posting false information and comments on an attack on 13 Chinese sailors in October 2011, according to the AP. He was initially charged with declaring false capital in the registration of his Internet consulting company and of conducting illegal business operations, according to reports citing police statements. China often prosecutes bloggers and political activists on charges of spreading rumors and arbitrary crimes, like bribery, blackmail, or financial misconduct, according to CPJ research.
“President Xi Jinping’s government continues to go to great lengths to stamp out political criticism that has not passed through official censors,” said CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Bob Dietz. “Dong Rubin is one of several victims of the tactic of wielding charges of business or personal misconduct to denigrate critical voices in China.”