February 11, 2010
By EDWARD WONG
A literary editor sentenced by a Chinese court to five years in prison gave a defiant handwritten appeal to the court on Wednesday. The editor, Tan Zuoren, was sentenced by the court on Tuesday for subversion. The court said Mr. Tan faced the charges because of recent writings and a rally criticizing the government’s deadly suppression of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989 were the reasons, but his supporters said the central government wanted to stop his investigation of fatal school collapses during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake. At least 5,300 children died in the earthquake, according to the government.
Mr. Tan wrote his appeal in 12 Chinese words, simply saying: “I am innocent, I protest, I defy, I appeal.”
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