Li Wangyang, a veteran labor rights activist from Hunan Province, was sentenced to 10 years in prison for incitement to subvert state power by the People’s Intermediate Court of Shaoyang on 20 September 2001.
Li was accused of subversion for demanding that the government pay for treatment of medical conditions he developed during 11 years in prison for promoting labor rights during the 1989 democracy movement.
Li was first arrested in June 1989 and sentenced to 13 years imprisonment the following year on charges of “counter-revolutionary propaganda and incitement” for founding the Shaoyang Workers’ Autonomous Federation and leading workers’ strikes during the May 1989 pro-democracy movement. He was released in June 2000, but in February 2001, he staged a 22-day hunger strike in an attempt to obtain medical compensation for injuries to his back, heart and lungs that he had sustained while in prison, and which reportedly left him unable to walk unaided. His eyesight is also seriously impaired. For staging the hunger-strike protest, Li was again arrested by the police. On 5 September 2001, he was tried in secret by the People’s Intermediate Court of Shaoyang on the charge of “incitement to subvert state power” and sentenced to a further 10 years’ imprisonment.
Li Wangyang was released on 5 May 2011
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