CHINA-XINJIANG: HUMAN RIGHTS
|
On January 15, 2016, rights activist and Han Chinese, Zhang Haitao, was sentenced to 19 years in prison by the Urumqi Intermediate Court of the Xinjiang-Uyghur Autonomous Region. 44-year-old Zhang Haitao was convicted of “inciting subversion of state power” and “probing and illegally supplying intelligence abroad”. The court also ordered confiscation of his personal assets of 120,000 yuan ($18,000). The accusations leveled against Zhang include publishing online articles attacking socialism, assisting the work of foreign media, and “rumor-mongering.” Originally from Henan Province, Zhang Haitao first came to Xinjiang to join the electronics retail business after being laid off from a state-owned company in the 1990s. One day in April 2009, while on vacation at his home in Nanyang, Henan, a group of policemen from Urumqi broke into his house and took him to Urumqi. During the train ride the police handcuffed and shackled him, and stopped him from using the restroom. After 30 days of interrogation in a detention center for alleged fraud in Urumqi, Zhang Haitao was freed.
|