A former official trade union official in Liaoning Province, Kong Youping was sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment on 16 September 2004 by the Shenyang Intermediate People's Court. Kong's colleague and co-defendant at the September 2004 trial, Ning Xianhua 宁先华, was sentenced to 12 years' imprisonment. Kong, 54 years old, originally worked as the union chairman at a state-owned enterprise in Liaoning, but his support for protests by laid-off workers and his sharp criticism of government corruption and suppression led to his dismissal from both the factory and the union. In the late 1990s, a group of political dissidents, including Kong Youping, were working to establish a branch of the China Democracy Party (CDP) in Liaoning Province, and in 1999 Kong was detained and imprisoned for a year on charges of “incitement to subvert state power”. Prior to his recent arrest and trial, Kong was reportedly involved in planning the establishment of an independent union and had posted articles on the Internet criticizing official corruption and calling for a reassessment of the violent suppression of the 1989 Democracy Movement by the army. The specific charges laid against Kong Youping and Ning Xianhua at their trial are currently unknown.
June 2005
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