Liu Xiaobo's brother-in-law imprisoned
Liu Hui, the brother-in-law of China’s imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo was sentenced to 11 years in prison for fraud on Sunday — an unusually harsh punishment for a business dispute.
The 11-year sentence for a business dispute is harsh even by Chinese standards and matches the 11 years Liu Xiaobo is currently serving for authoring a programmatic call for democracy. Fraud is usually punishable by up to 10 years in jail, though judges — who answer to the ruling Communist Party — have discretion to issue longer terms for egregious cases.
Lawyers for Liu Hui said he and another business partner were accused of pocketing 3 million yuan that was claimed by another party to the transaction. According to the lawyers, the money has since been returned, and police after first investigating the case dropped it last fall and then revived the charges early this year.
“This is damaging to my whole family,” said Liu’s sister and the wife of the imprisoned Nobel laureate, Liu Xia, who was allowed to leave the Beijing apartment where she has been confined in order to attend the hearing. She criticised the authorities for being unscrupulous in persecuting the family: “Look at this situation. There’s no bottom line.”
The prosecution of Liu Hui is the latest measure against the family. Liu Xiaobo was arrested in 2008 and soon after he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2010 for his campaigning for peaceful democratic change, his wife, Liu Xia, who is a poet and also an activist, was placed under house arrest. In the two-and-a-half years since, she has rarely been allowed out in public and has been kept in the apartment without phone or Internet connections to prevent her from becoming a rallying point for other activists.
The arrest of Liu Hui in February was seen as retaliation against Liu Xia after she twice spoke out — once to other activists who sneaked past security and visited her apartment and once to reporters for The Associated Press.
Family members and their supporters have said the prosecution of Liu Hui is meant as further punishment of the Nobel laureate’s family and is intended to intimidate other political activists.
Lawyers for Liu Hui said he and another business partner were accused of pocketing 3 million yuan that was claimed by another party to the transaction. According to the lawyers, the money has since been returned, and police after first investigating the case dropped it last fall and then revived the charges early this year.
“This is damaging to my whole family,” said Liu’s sister and the wife of the imprisoned Nobel laureate, Liu Xia, who was allowed to leave the Beijing apartment where she has been confined in order to attend the hearing. She criticised the authorities for being unscrupulous in persecuting the family: “Look at this situation. There’s no bottom line.”
The prosecution of Liu Hui is the latest measure against the family. Liu Xiaobo was arrested in 2008 and soon after he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2010 for his campaigning for peaceful democratic change, his wife, Liu Xia, who is a poet and also an activist, was placed under house arrest. In the two-and-a-half years since, she has rarely been allowed out in public and has been kept in the apartment without phone or Internet connections to prevent her from becoming a rallying point for other activists.
The arrest of Liu Hui in February was seen as retaliation against Liu Xia after she twice spoke out — once to other activists who sneaked past security and visited her apartment and once to reporters for The Associated Press.
Family members and their supporters have said the prosecution of Liu Hui is meant as further punishment of the Nobel laureate’s family and is intended to intimidate other political activists.
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