China restores rights to dissident poet Zhu Yufu on eve of high-profile political congress
A veteran Chinese activist had his political rights restored by the Chinese Communist Party on Wednesday, after spending seven years in jail and being stripped of those rights for four years.
The restoration of Zhu Yufu’s rights was announced two days before China’s state congress convened its annual plenary session on Friday – the biggest political gathering on China’s political calendar, where national-level political decisions are made for the coming year.
The 68-year-old Zhu was first arrested in June 1998 for helping to launch the Democracy Party of China. He was sentenced to seven years in prison for subverting state power, released in 2006, then rearrested the following year for obstructing official duties.
Zhu was sentenced to a consecutive seven-year term of imprisonment in 2011 for openly supporting the pro-democracy protests that sprouted in multiple Chinese cities in solidarity with Tunisia’s 28-day Jasmine Revolution. His political rights were cancelled for four additional years, at the same time.
Zhu was not the only Chinese activist repressed by the authorities that year. The prominent Sichuan writer and political activist Chen Wei was sentenced to nine years in jail in December 2011 for inciting subversion.
Despite Zhu’s unexpected restoration, some mainland Chinese netizens scoffed at the timing – coming just before the high-profile political meeting – calling it “the biggest cold pun (lame joke, or irony) of the year.”
Chinese people are “deprived of their political rights at birth,” one said.
Another netizen wrote, “The Chinese people’s political power was originally nil.”
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