By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN
BEIJING – A Chinese court Wednesday upheld a dissident’s five-year sentence for subversion passed down after he investigated the deaths of children crushed in their schools during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake.
Tan Zuoren went on trial in August and was sentenced in February on the vaguely defined charge of inciting subversion of state power.
The Sichuan provincial high court upheld the earlier ruling in a brief hearing Wednesday morning, Tan’s wife, Wang Qinghua, said by telephone.
Chinese bureaucrats rarely release information about sensitive political cases and court officials reached at two separate departments said they had no information about Tan’s appeal.
The denial of his appeal underscores the government’s determination to suppress questions about why so many schools collapsed during the quake, which took 90,000 lives.
According to official figures, almost 7,000 classrooms collapsed, killing 5,335 students, but the government has refused to respond to complaints that many schools were poorly constructed and lacked emergency exits and other basic safety features.
Parents of children killed launched a short-lived protest movement, to which authorities — ever vigilant against criticism and potential unrest — responded with jailings and threats. Avant-garde artist Ai Weiwei, who has also investigated student deaths, was detained and beaten by police while attempting to attend Tan’s August trial.
In Hong Kong, about 30 human rights activists protested the court’s decision Wednesday outside the Chinese government’s liaison office in the semiautonomous territory, which enjoys its own legal system and civil liberties. Members of the group chanted “Release Tan Zuoren immediately.”
Wang said she had seen Tan from a distance in the court room and the two exchanged smiles and waves but weren’t allowed to speak. She said the only remarks made during the 10-minute hearing were from the judge.
Tan, 56, who has been detained since April 2009, appeared to be in high spirits and good health, Wang said.
“It’s not too hard to take. Just a few hundred days to go,” Wang said.
The February ruling made no mention of Tan’s quake research, citing instead an essay he wrote about the June 4, 1989 military crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing and plans to commemorate the anniversary. However, his supporters and human rights groups say they believe he was targeted because of the school project.
Tan had conducted his own investigation into 64 schools flattened by the 7.9 magnitude temblor, which struck a wide swath of mountainous southwestern China and the Tibetan plateau. Before being detained, Tan had estimated that more than 5,600 students died or were missing, but said that number was incomplete.
Complaints over school construction emerged after classrooms collapsed even as government offices and other buildings nearby remained intact.
