November 26, 2015 (BBC) — Chinese journalist Gao Yu jailed for leaking state secrets has been allowed to serve her sentence outside prison on medical grounds, Chinese. Yu, 71, was found guilty last April and challenged her conviction at a closed hearing in Beijing on Thursday.
The guilty verdict was upheld, but the jail term was cut from seven years to five and the medical grounds permitted.
The well-known investigative journalist was found guilty of sending an internal Communist Party document to Mingjing News, a Chinese-language website in the United States. The document warned against the dangers of a free press and an independent civil society.
At the time of the original conviction the court had said that Gao had “illegally provided state secrets to foreigners”. Both Gao and Mingjing News had denied she was the source of the leak.
BBC story here.
See earlier post, “PRC reporter Gao Yu sentenced to 7 years on state secrets conviction,” April 17, 2015.
