A Chinese dissident has been jailed for five years for circulating a petition calling on the authorities to improve human rights.
Drafted by unemployed factory worker Yang Chunlin, the petition read ‘We don’t want the Olympics, we want human rights’ and was apparently signed by between 7,000 and 8,000 people. He was also accused of accepting money from the China Liberal Democracy Party, which authorities have designated a ‘hostile organisation’. Yang has decided not to appeal, as he believes doing so would serve to legitimise a legal process which he considers to be seriously flawed.
