School Construction Critic Gets Prison Term in China

By SHARON LaFRANIERE | The New York Times
November 24, 2009

A lengthy prison sentence for a rights activist shows the determination of Chinese officials to suppress any vestige of dissent related to shoddy construction and unnecessary deaths in last year's devastating earthquake in Sichuan Province, fellow activists said.

Huang Qi, 46, who helped parents press their grievances against the local government after their children died when their schools collapsed, was given a three-year prison term on Monday. He was convicted of illegal possession of state secrets, a common charge used to punish people who defy the authorities.

Mr. Huang's wife, Zeng Li, said in a telephone interview that her husband was found guilty of possession of "certain documents from a certain city." The documents and the city were not identified during a 10-minute court hearing in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, she said.

According to Ms. Zeng, the judge said that her husband must be severely punished because he had a prior conviction for inciting subversive activity. A prosecutor privately told her that her husband "has stepped on a lot of toes," she said.

She said her husband hoped to appeal the verdict. Mr. Huang is part of a loosely linked network of bereaved parents and activists who partly blame substandard shcool construction for the high toll from China's biggest natural disaster in decades.

By the government's estimate, about 90,000 people died in the earthquake, including 5,335 schoolchildren.

Ai Weiwei, a prominent artist in Beijing who has documented and publicized the deaths of schoolchildren, said Mr. Huang's punishment "is absolutely outrageous."

"They just want to put down any opposition," said the artist, who helped design Beijing's Olympic National Stadium, known as the Bird's Nest.

Although he has not faced as much pressure as Mr. Huang or other activists, Mr. Ai said he was also being harassed by government authorities. Last week, he said, government security officers visited his bank and told officials there that he had committed a serious crime, he said.

"I have asked myself many times, 'Should I do this?' " he said in a telephone interview. "The answer is clear. I have to act on my feelings."

Mr. Ai has tried to press the government to release a list of the dead children. Only in May, a year after the earthquake, did the authorities made public an estimate of how many died or were missing and presumed dead.

One 43-year-old mother lost her 14-year-old son when his high school in the city of Beichuan collapsed. "This is beyond my words," she said when asked about Mr. Huang's sentence. She gave her last name as Liu and requested that her first name not be used, for fear of repercussions.

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