Chen Wei (; born 21 February 1969) is a Chinese dissident and human rights activist. In December 2011, he was sentenced to nine years in prison for inciting subversion.

Biography

Chen was born 21 February 1969 in

Suining Suining ( zh, s=遂宁 , t=遂寧; Sichuanese Pinyin: Xu4nin2; Sichuanese pronunciation: ; zh, p=Sùiníng , w=Sui-ning) is a prefecture-level city of eastern Sichuan province in Southwest China. According to the 2020 census, Suining had a p ...

Sichuan Sichuan is a province in Southwestern China, occupying the Sichuan Basin and Tibetan Plateau—between the Jinsha River to the west, the Daba Mountains to the north, and the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau to the south. Its capital city is Cheng ...

. Chen was one of the student leaders of the

1989 Tiananmen Square Protests The Tiananmen Square protests, known within China as the June Fourth Incident, were student-led Demonstration (people), demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China, lasting from 15 April to 4 June 1989. After weeks of unsucces ...

, when he was a mechanical engineering student at the

Beijing Institute of Technology The Beijing Institute of Technology (BIT) is a Public university, public, Comprehensive school, comprehensive, Research university, research university located in Haidian District, Haidian District, Beijing City, China. The university is part o ...

. He was imprisoned in Qincheng prison and released in January 1991. In May 1992, Chen was arrested again for commemorating the Tiananmen Square Protests and organizing a political party, and was sentenced to five years in prison. Chen was a signatory of

Charter 08 Charter 08 is a manifesto initially signed by 303 Chinese dissident intellectuals and human rights activists. It was published on 10 December 2008, the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopting its name and style fro ...

, a manifesto demanding the right of free association and the end to one-party rule.Hennock, Mary
"China jails dissident Chen Xi for 10 years"
''The Guardian'', 26 December 2011 04.23 EST. Retrieved 2011-12-26.

2011 arrest

On the morning of 20 February 2011 Chen followed a police invitation for tea but did not return. The Suining City Public Security Bureau released a document on the evening of 21 February, stating that he had been criminally detained for "inciting subversion of state power." Officers and security guards later searched his home, confiscating a computer, two hard drives and a USB drive, and then held him at the Suining City Detention Center. Chinese Human Rights Defenders reported on 17 December 2011 that Chen's case had been transferred to the Suining Municipal Intermediate People's Court at the end of November 2011. Authorities reportedly attempted to prevent Chen's wife from hiring lawyer Liang Xiaojun. Liang was ultimately only permitted to see Chen once, while his other lawyer, Zheng Jianwei, saw him only twice before the trial. Chen told his lawyer that he had not broken the law and that he had merely been exercising the right guaranteed to all Chinese citizens under the Chinese Constitution to express their views. Chen's lawyer was told that the trial would be held within one week. On 23 December 2011, the Suining Municipal Intermediate People's Court sentenced Chen to nine years in prison after he was convicted of "incitement to subversion" over four essays he wrote and published online. The essays were said to contravene article 105 of China's criminal code.Congressional-Executive Commission on China
'Authorities Sentence Chen Wei to 9 Years for Posting Pro-Democracy Essays '
23 December 2011. The

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are Geography of the European Union, located primarily in Europe. The u ...

ambassador to Beijing, Markus Ederer, said the EU was "deeply concerned" about Chen's sentence and "we encourage political debate rather than the use of criminal law as a means to resolve diverging political opinions".

Amnesty International Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says that it has more than ten million members a ...

declared him a

prisoner of conscience A prisoner of conscience (POC) is anyone imprisoned because of their race, sexual orientation, religion, or political views. The term also refers to those who have been imprisoned or persecuted for the nonviolent expression of their conscienti ...

and called for his immediate release.

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. Headquartered in New York City, the group investigates and reports on issues including War crime, war crimes, crim ...

condemned the arrest as part of China's most severe crackdown on activists in a decade, and called for an immediate response from the international community.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Chen, Wei 1969 births Amnesty International prisoners of conscience held by China 1989 Tiananmen Square protesters Chinese dissidents Living people Chinese prisoners and detainees Beijing Institute of Technology alumni Charter 08 signatories

Biography

2011 arrest

See also

References