Arrests in media crackdown
17 May 2006
A dissident has been awarded a 12-year jail sentence for subversion as part of a media crackdown that has seen five journalists charged with extortion, AFP reported. Yang Tianshui, 45, who was imprisoned from 1990 to 2000 for "counter-revolutionary" crimes, was sentenced to another 12 years for organizing pro-democracy activities and publishing anti-government articles online. Yang's lawyer said his client pleaded innocent and argued that the trial was both illegal and an insult. In a separate case, Yang Xiaoqing, a journalist at Communist Youth Party-run newspaper China Industrial Economy News, went on trial in Hunan province, facing charges of extortion related to his investigations into local corruption. Meanwhile, four Beijing-based reporters were arrested for investigating "irregularities" at state institutions and trying to extort money from them, state media reported.