China releases imprisoned journalist early on health grounds

Gao Yu attends the opening of a photo exhibition in Hong Kong, in this June, 2012, file photo. A Chinese court upheld a conviction on Nov. 26, 2015 against Gao, a journalist accused of leaking an internal Communist Party document to a foreign Web site, but reduced her jail sentence by two years and released her on health grounds. (Bobby Yip/Reuters)

By Simon Denyer-November 26

BEIJING — A prominent 71-year-old Chinese journalist was released from jail early on health grounds on Thursday, after being controversially imprisoned for leaking state secrets to foreigners.

Sentenced in April to a seven-year term, Gao Yu will be allowed to serve out her term outside prison due to “severe illnesses,” China’s state news agency reported. At the same time, her sentence was reduced Thursday to five years, after she pleaded guilty to the charges against her in a closed-door hearing.

The original verdict had been condemned by human rights groups, foreign governments and journalists’ associations.

Gao suffers from high blood pressure and chronic heart pain. Denied adequate medical care during the initial months of her incarceration, according to her family and lawyers, her health deteriorated, and fears mounted that she could die behind bars.

The U.S. government had been among those calling for her release, and there was relief when the decision to release her was announced.

 

Sophie Richardson, China director at Human Rights Watch, welcomed “the very unusual steps” taken by the government in Beijing to reduce her sentence and grant her medical parole.

“Perhaps it's getting the message that letting peaceful critics die in prison doesn't look good,” she wrote in an e-mail. “But the reality remains that Gao — and so many others languishing in jail — should never have been there at all.”

Gao was accused of leaking a secret party document — known as Document No. 9 — to a Chinese-language Web site based in New York.

The document set out seven “dangers” that party officials were supposed to counter — including Western-style democracy, human rights, media freedom and criticism of the Communist Party’s history. The campaign against Western ideas formed part of a broad crackdown launched by President Xi Jinping that has seen censorship intensify and several other journalists imprisoned.

Gao, one of China’s most renowned journalists, has won several international awards, and this was her third prison sentence.

She was jailed in June 1989 for reporting on and supporting the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests, serving 15 months behind bars. She was imprisoned again for leaking state secrets in 1993, before her release, also on medical grounds in 1999. She was detained a third time in April of last year, before finally being sentenced in April 2015.

Her lawyer, Shang Baojun, said Gao had gone to stay with her son. Shang said he had expected the decision to release her but “was surprised it came so soon,” adding it was not yet clear how much freedom she would be granted.

 

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Xu Jing contributed to this report.

Simon Denyer is The Post’s bureau chief in China. He served previously as bureau chief in India and as a Reuters bureau chief in Washington, India and Pakistan.