China human rights lawyer Li Heping given suspended jail term

One of China's best-known human rights lawyers has been given a three-year suspended jail term for subverting state power. Li Heping was sentenced in a closed-doors trial, Chinese state media said. He has defended other prominent lawyers, including Chen Guangcheng and Gao Zhisheng, as well as practitioners of the banned Falun Gong movement. Li was detained in 2015 as part of a wider government crackdown on dissent under President Xi Jinping. The lawyer's trial took place on 25 April in the Tianjin City Number Two Intermediate People's Court, and concerned state secrets, the court said on its Weibo social media account.

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