A Chinese man was sentenced to three years in prison on Monday for breaking China's “state secrets” laws after he tried to provide legal advice to parents whose children died in shoddily built schools in the Sichuan earthquake last year.
After 17 months of secretive criminal proceedings that human rights groups said fell far short of China's legal regulations and international human rights standards, Huang Qi, 46, a veteran rights activist, was sentenced in a court in Sichuan.
Zeng Li, Mr Huang's wife, told the Financial Times: “Huang Qi was only trying to help the parents of earthquake victims prove those schools were poorly built and he gave interviews to some foreign media, and just for that he was punished.”