A prominent Chinese human rights lawyer was convicted of subversion and sentenced to seven years in prison Thursday, the court said - adding that he thanked President Xi Jinping for his leadership. The proceedings againt Zhou Shifeng, director of the now defunct Beijing Fengrui law firm, was the third such trial this week. Zhou was convicted of "subverting state power" and jailed for seven years, the Second Intermediate People's Court in the northern city of Tianjin said in a statement posted on its official social media account.
Since 2011, Zhou had "attacked the socialist system" online and verbally, and used Fengrui as a platform to challenge the government, endangering national security, the judge said. Zhou pleaded guilty and said he would "never appeal", adding that the ruling would "stand the test of history" for its fairness, footage of the trial from state broadcaster CCTV showed.
The court said he thanked late paramount Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping for reforms that made his "development" possible. "The second person I would like to extend my gratitude to is Chairman Xi Jinping," it cited him as saying. "His national strategy to implement the rule of law has made China stronger." The declarations attributed to him were in marked contrast to his previous career, which included numerous politically sensitive cases.
In 2008, he sued one of the country's largest dairy producers on behalf of a victim of the notorious contaminated milk powder scandal, in which six children died and some 300,000 were sickened. Under Zhou's leadership, Fengrui defended artist Ai Weiwei, Uighur intellectual Ilham Tohti - sentenced to life in prison for separatism - and rights activist Cao Shunli. Zhou was the third 709 detainee to be tried in Tianjin this week.
The spate of hearings was a "political charade" with no chance of fair trial, Roseann Rife of campaign group Amnesty International said in a statement, adding the defendants' "fates were sealed before they stepped into the courtroom".