Chongqing senior editor was put to jail for writing online diary

Chinese origin:
Online dairy led to imprisonment
Chongqing senior editor was put to jail for writing online diary

In the early April, Gao Yingpu, an editor-in-chief in Chongqing Chinese BusinessTimes, was taken away by police from his home in the morning, July 2010. He was sentenced for "crimes against national security" for three years, and was due to his criticism toward Chongqing’s authority on personal online diary. The news was released after he has been imprisoned for one and a half years.

Weiquanwang (Human Rights Defenders blogspot) said the case was first exposed online by an anonymous user who claimed to be Gao’s former colleagues. According to this user, Gao, aged 49, wrote several diaries in his QQ space (similar to MSN) by the end of 2009, critiqued the authority using severe policy against gangsters and carried out a lot pro-communist propaganda. He interviewed those violence witnesses who experienced the Cultural Revolution, concluded that “we should learn from the past in order to avoid mistake in future”. In another article, he focused on Bo Xilai claiming his disrespect of the law. After Bo Xilai has been removed from his position, mainland netizens re-posted Gao’s articles and questioned the authority policies. However, Gao's wife still refused to say something about him, told “she was temporary inconvenience”. But she made it clear that she would employ lawyer to help.

Gao was born in 1963 and graduated in journalism in Wuhan university. Although he was a journalist, no newspapers reported his case. The whole trial processes were conducted secretly He was not allowed to appeal. His wife had to promise not to disclose to anyone. Gao was put to jail for almost two years, neither his mother, neighbours, nor colleagues of his wife knew about this. His wife told people Gao was doing big business in Iraq. On the day he was arrested, his wife was desperately and tried to seek help from Gao’s friends. Yet, few days later, she asked them never find anyone for help, not any lawyers. “You must not let media know this matter, especially those overseas media. Otherwise, if Gao die, I cannot live…..” Thus, these few friends stopped seeking help.

Time passes. But Gao is still in jail.