A US-based research scholar and political dissident, Yang participated in the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement in 1989; his name was on a 1994 PRC police blacklist of 49 Chinese pro-democracy activists who were barred from re-entering China. Yang Jianli entered China in April 2002 by using a friend’s passport, as part of a plan to try and investigate the rapidly growing labour unrest situation in Shenyang City, Liaoyang City and Daqing City in northeastern China. He was detained on 26 April 2002 and officially arrested by the Beijing State Security Bureau on 28 April 2002. He was then held in incommunicado detention for the next 15 months – well beyond the legally permitted maximum period for pre-trial detention. On 13 May 2004, Yang was tried in a closed court hearing on charges of “espionage” and “illegal entry,” and was duly pronounced guilty and sentenced to a term of five years’ imprisonment.
June 2005
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