Chinese human rights lawyer Yu Wensheng released after 4 years

Beijing, Mar 1 (EFE).- Chinese human rights lawyer Yu Wensheng, sentenced to 4 years in 2020 for “inciting subversion of state power,” was released Tuesday from prison in the eastern city of Nanjing, according to a Twitter post by his wife Xu Yan.

Yu Wensheng was on a train bound for Beijing according to his wife, who awaits him at a hotel in the capital.

Yu, winner of the Martin Ennals Award in 2021 for championing human rights, had been in prison since he his arrest in January 2018 while taking his son to school.

A day earlier, in a letter, he had publicly called for holding free elections in China, among other political reforms.

During his career as a lawyer, Yu took part in the defense of several human rights cases, including those of the members of the religious group Falun Gong – banned in China since 1999 – as well as his colleagues, including several arrested in 2015 in the so-called “709 crackdown.”

During the few meetings with his lawyer, Yu has claimed to have suffered torture and mistreatment during his confinement that may have caused him to lose part of the mobility of his right hand.

The charge of subversion of state power against him is commonly used by Chinese courts to punish dissidents, human rights activists and other actors critical of the Communist regime. EFE

aa/sc