PRC: Guilty verdict plus five-year sentence for Yang Jianli
To render this judgment, the PRC thumbs its nose at a full-court press of international concern

CSN

The case of Yang Jianli has dragged on since his April, 2002 arrest, eight days after Yang returned to China from his home in the Boston area, where he is founder and President of the Foundation for China in the 21st century.

Yang returned to China to investigate workers' protests that broke out in northeastern China, but was arrested by the public security police in Kunming, Yunnan Province on April 26. His incarceration ever since then has become a two-year time line of outrageous violations of Yang's human rights by the PRC government in China.

Even while it has dragged on, Yang's case has been hotly protested by the Chinese pro-democracy movement, where he is a top talent, and by the United Nations, the U.S. Congress, and State Department, among others in the international community who have interceded on Yang's behalf.

"It is hard to know whether this is the end of his ordeal, or the beginning of a further three or five years of an ordeal that Yang Jianli must endure," said John Kusumi, Executive Director at the China Support Network. "Sometimes, in a case like this, Beijing passes a sentence but deports the prisoner. Given his U.S. permanent residency, the high profile of this controversy, and the international outcry, this case fits that mold. Alternately, Beijing can be intransigent. If so in this case, then Beijing is clearly flouting [giving the middle finger to] international public opinion, governmental bodies around the world, and human rights concerns. This becomes another blazing display of what is wrong on the part of China's PRC government."

Last month, U.S. lawmakers warned that Sino-U.S. relations are at stake and would be harmed by Yang's continued imprisonment. Responses to this case were expected later on Thursday; this report was compiled too early to query around the cause. "The cause will unanimously condemn this sentence," predicted Kusumi. "Barney Frank's office should be livid, as will Freedom Now. The thought of a long sentence for Yang triggers a gut, visceral reaction -- and, for the PRC to really keep him suggests a deliberate snub of all Western governments, values, and human rights concerns."

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Source: "CSN".