Date: Wed, 30 Oct 1996 01:09:15 -0600

To: Multiple recipients of list CHINA-NT

WANG Dan Sentenced to 11 Years' Imprisonment in Less Than 5 Hours -----------------------------------------------------------------Reported by: YIN De An, Bo Xiong

[CND, 10/30/96] A dispatch was sent out by Deutsche Presse-Agentur this afternoon (Beijing time), quoting a brief statement by the official Chinese news agency Xinhua as saying that Chinese dissident WANG Dan was sentenced Wednesday to 11 years in prison in a decision by Beijing No.1 Intermediate Court on charges that he had endangered state security and conspired to overthrow the government.

WANG Dan, 27, is one of China's best-known dissidents and a leader of the 1989 Tiananmen pro-democracy protests. He served 3.5 years of a 4 year sentence in prison for his activities in 1989, when he was a student leader of the protests in Tiananmen Square. After his release on parol in, he continued to call for more freedom and tolerance. He had been secretly detained without due legal process per PRC law for 17 months until he was formally arrested and charged on October 3, 1996. His family was only given 24 hours to find a lawyer for him earlier thsi month.

WANG Dan's mother, who also serves as one of his two defence lawyers, said Tuesday that WANG Dan will appeal to the higher court if convicted. The guilty verdict was almost a foregone conclusion because most criminal trials in China result in convictions.

Robin Munro, Hong Kong director of the New York-based agency Human Rights Watch/Asia, when interviewed by AFX, noted that the verdict was announced by Xinhua "only four and a half hours after the trial began."

Police sealed off the courthouse early Wednesday morning. They confiscated videotapes from at least two foreign cameramen and threatened an AP reporter with expulsion from China if he returned. No international observers were given permission to attend the trial.

Legal experts from the U.S., Canada, Chile and France asked to attend Wang's trial to gauge its fairness, but weren't allowed. The U.S. Embassy also applied to send an observer, but said the government didn't reply.

Human Rights Watch said that by refusing to allow foreign observers, China violated the right to a fair trial specified by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which China is obliged to uphold as a member of the United Nations. Foreign Ministry spokesman SHEN Guofang said Tuesday that the declaration was "relatively broad and sweeping."