Wang Dan is sentenced to 11 years in prison

On October 30, 1996 a court in Beijing convicted Wang Dan, a former student leader of the Tiananmen Square democracy movement, of "plotting to subvert the government" through his critical writings in foreign publications and through his association with other prominent dissidents. After a four-hour show trial in a sealed courthouse, Mr. Wang was sentenced to prison for 11 years. When Mr. Wang emerges in 2007 at the age of 38, he will have spent 17 years in prison.

The court complained that in an essay titled "China in the Post-Deng Era and the Democratic Movement on the Mainland," Mr. Wang "went so far as to say" that in the post-Deng era "China will certainly get into turmoil," and suggested that "the major task for the democratic movement on the mainland now should be making long-term and meticulous preparations for the arrival of the post-Deng era."

"He is definitely innocent," Mr. Wang's father said. "Speech cannot overthrow the government."

By the end of 1996, there were no active dissidents left in China who had not been jailed or exiled. An official of Clinton administration described the Chinese success at wiping out active dissent as "an accomplishment even post-Stalinist Russia could not achieve."

(Sources: The New York Times, October 31, 1996 and January 28, 1997.)

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