China sentenced reporter Li Yuanlong to two years in jail on Thursday, adding to its list of writers imprisoned for expressing themselves through the country’s expanding but tightly censored internet.
Li, who worked on the Bijie Daily in the southwestern province of Guizhou, was detained in September and charged in February with issuing essays that “fabricated, distorted and exaggerated facts, incited subversion of the state and (sought) to overthrow the socialist system.”
He sent the offending essays by e-mail between May and August last year using the pseudonyms “Night Wolf” and “Wolf Howling in the Night.”
“I feel it’s very unjust,” Li’s wife, Yang Xiumin, told Reuters of the sentence. “To give such a heavy sentence just for a few essays isn’t rule of law. It’s not justice.”
