Accused of "inciting subversion of state power" for articles he posted online and for an interview with Radio Free Asia, he was jailed for trying to join his dying wife in the United States. His sister says he is in poor health after going on a hunger strike for months.
Beijing (AsiaNews) – The Guangzhou Municipal Procuratorate in Guangdong has indicted jailed human rights lawyer Guo Feixiong for "inciting subversion of state power,” this according to his sister Yang Maoping, ChinaAid reports.
The charges stem from articles Guo posted on World Constitutional Democracy Forum, a website he created, and an interview he granted to Radio Free Asia.
Police had arrested Guo in January 2021 at Pudong airport in Shanghai as he was boarding a place bound for the United States where he wanted to join his wife Zhang Qing who was dying from cancer. Earlier this year, she passed away without ever seeing her husband again.
The activist, whose real name is Yang Maodong, has been fighting for human rights in China since the Tiananmen protests of 1989 when the government slaughtered thousands of students demanding freedom and democracy.
Since his first arrest in 2006, Guo has spent 11 years in prison overall. In 2013 he was jailed for asking the government to ratify the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
In December 2015 he issued a prophetic statement against the Chinese Communist Party. “Our movement for freedom and democracy will only grow stronger in the crucible of your repression,” he wrote. And for him, this would speed up the fall of the regime.
Before his latest detention, the dissident was released from prison in August 2019, but placed under constant police monitoring.
During his imprisonment he suffered torture. Now his sister says that he is on a hunger strike and that he is being kept alive through nasal feeding.
(Photo RFA)