Chinese lawyer Zhou Shifeng was sentenced Thursday to seven years in prison on charges that he was subverting the ruling Communist Party. In the third trial of its kind this year, Zhou, 52, was found guilty of aiding “activists who attempted to manipulate public opinion and damage national security by spreading subversive thoughts,” according to state media. As a lawyer, Zhou famously represented dissident artist Ai Weiwei, members of the banned Falun Gong meditation sect, and journalist Zhang Miao, who was detained for nine months after helping a German outlet report on pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. Zhou also ran afoul of the government by taking on legal cases in the massive tainted infant-formula scandal the ruling party had attempted to squelch.
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