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A Hong Kong-based publisher who was arrested while preparing to release an unauthorized biography of Chinese leader Xi Jinping has been freed after serving a 10-year sentence in a south China prison.
The respected San Francisco-based rights monitoring group Dui Hua reported Thursday that Yao Wentian, 83, was released Feb. 26 and returned to his family in Hong Kong the next day.
Yao was arrested in October 2013 and served his entire sentence apart from an eight-month term reduction in Dongguan prison near the border with the semi-autonomous Chinese city. He had repeatedly been denied appeals for medical release filed by Dui Hua, but had been moved to the prison’s medical facility and was allowed monthly visits from his wife, the group said in a news release.
Yao had been sentenced to 10 years and fined for “smuggling common goods” after he brought construction materials into China to help a friend who was refurbishing his apartment, Dui Hua said. He was accused of failing to declare the value of the goods at customs, not normally a crime punished with such a harsh sentence.
Yao’s publishing of sensitive books was “almost certainly the reason for his imprisonment,” Dui Hua said. Reports at the time said police and customs agents appeared to have been laying in wait for Yao as he crossed the border into China with several cans of paint for a longtime friend.
An officer who answered the phone at Dongguan Prison said she was unable to provide any information about past or current prisoners and refused to confirm whether Yao had served his sentence there.
