On October 16, 2009, Sugian Intermediate People’s Court in Jiangsu Province sentenced Professor Guo Quan, former Nanjing Normal University associate professor and former member of China Democratic League (one of the eight state-approved “democratic” parties) to ten years in prison for “subversion of state power.” Between 2007 and 2008, Guo Quan published articles and an open letter on the Internet addressed to President Hu Jintao and Wu Bangguo, Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress. The articles and letters covered social problems in China such as those of laid-off workers, demobilized military cadres, and peasants who lost their land.
In 2007, Guo Quan was fired by the university from his position as associate professor. In November 2008, Guo Quan was detained by the Nanjing Public Security Bureau in the Gulou District on suspicion of “subversion of state power.” A case was filed on June 20, 2009 in Suqian Intermediate People’s Court, and the trial took place on August 7, 2009. In issuing a decision more than four months after it accepted the case, the court exceeded the one-and-a-half month legal time limit for a court to conclude a case (Article 168, Criminal Procedure Law) according to Guo Quan’s lawyer, who said: “This sentence is indefensible from a legal perspective, because using peaceful and rational means to petition cannot be considered ‘subversion of state power.”
We appealed to the Chinese authorities to reverse the sentence against Guo Quan and ensure that he is reinstated in his academic position at Nanjing Normal University.