China Sentences Activist in Milk Scandal to Prison. nyt

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/11/world/asia/11beijing.html?_r=1

November 10, 2010
China Sentences Activist in Milk Scandal to Prison
By ANDREW JACOBS
BEIJING — A former journalist who became the public face of a campaign seeking justice for children harmed by tainted dairy products was sentenced Wednesday to two and a half years in prison on charges that his efforts disrupted social harmony.

Zhao Lianhai, whose own son was sickened in 2008 by baby formula laced with the industrial chemical melamine, had been accused of “inciting social disorder” for speaking to foreign reporters, publicly displaying magazine-size protest signs and organizing aggrieved parents through a Web site. His lawyer, Peng Jian, said he would appeal the sentence, which was issued by a court in suburban Beijing.

“The verdict and the trial were completely unfair,” Mr. Peng said.

Mr. Zhao, 37, was the most vocal and media-savvy advocate to emerge from the scandal. Melamine, used in the making of plastics and fertilizer, was found to have been added to watered-down milk to falsely raise its protein count content on tests.

By the time the Chinese news media publicized the contamination in the fall of 2008, six babies had died and 300,000 others had been sickened, including 50,000 who were hospitalized with kidney problems.

The revelations, which were withheld at least a month so as not to disturb the Beijing Olympics, prompted a global recall of Chinese dairy products and drew attention to deficiencies in the country’s food safety system. The authorities later arrested scores of farmers, melamine dealers and dairy executives, two of whom were executed. Tian Wenhua, the former chairwoman of the Sanlu Group, one of the nation’s biggest milk producers, was given a life sentence.

The government also forced 22 dairy companies to contribute to a compensation fund for affected families but many, including Mr. Zhao, complained that the program excluded many victims and failed to address long-term health problems associated with melamine consumption.

“Our biggest demand is not compensation, but medical treatment and academic research on the influence melamine will have on the health of our children,” he said in an interview in January 2009. “We want to know what kinds of lives our children will face.”

Although some children have recovered, others continue to battle health problems. Jiang Yalin, 35, said her 3-year-old daughter’s kidneys were still damaged even after having passed 20 kidney stones. “She easily gets colds and she frequently complains of pain in her waist,” said Ms. Jiang, from Zhejiang Province, who added that her daughter’s kidneys were still riddled with small stones.

Formerly the editor of a publication covering food and product safety, Mr. Zhao created a Web site, Kidney Stone Babies, that served as a clearinghouse for the parents of affected children. When it became clear that many dairy companies would escape punishment, he encouraged parents to file civil lawsuits against them — a futile tactic, as it turned out, given that most Chinese courts refused to accept the suits.

Not long after, he started running into resistance from the authorities.

His Web site was blocked and he and other advocates were detained more than once for trying to organize rallies. Last November, the police seized him at his home in Beijing, carting away computers, a camera and an address book. He has been in jail since.

During his trial in March, the court denied his lawyers’ request to present video evidence and witnesses in his defense. “The judge said the prosecution’s case was so solid, there was no need,” Mr. Peng, his lawyer, said, adding that he thought the government had failed to prove that Mr. Zhao’s activities had disturbed public order. “Holding up a sign outside a courthouse does not produce disorder,” he said.

When the verdict was read Wednesday morning, he said, Mr. Zhao shouted out “I’m innocent” and tore at his prison uniform. Before officers dragged him away, he declared his intention to stage a hunger strike. “We never expected such a heavy sentence,” said his wife, Li Xuemei, one of three relatives allowed in the courtroom.

Although perhaps a coincidence, Mr. Zhao’s sentencing came on the same day the Chinese government widely publicized a new initiative intended to coordinate the release of information about contaminated food and reduce the spread of “false news” that harms public confidence in China’s food safety, as a Health Ministry spokesman put it.

Word of Mr. Zhao’s verdict appeared on a handful of Web sites early in the day, but the news was largely scrubbed within hours.

Catherine Baber, Asia-Pacific deputy program director at Amnesty International, said the prosecution of Mr. Zhao and other parents follows a familiar pattern of quashing grass-roots efforts that use the law to challenge entrenched interests.

“It’s truly scandalous that a citizen who pressed his government to strengthen food safety standards has been sentenced to jail,” she said. “The government should be encouraging these kinds of efforts, but instead it strangles them at birth.”

Zhang Jing contributed research.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: November 10, 2010


A previous version of this article misspelled the name of Zhao Lianhai, the former journalist sentenced on Wednesday.



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