Chinese Editor Sentenced to 6 Years in Jail

After a secret trial without defense lawyers, a prominent Chinese journalist was sentenced to six years in prison under a security law that has cast a chill over China’s media, human rights groups said Saturday.

Gao Yu, 50, was convicted this week of “leaking state secrets,” the human rights groups said. She is believed to have been arrested for writing about Chinese politics for a Hong Kong magazine.

“Gao’s detention and trial violate all international standards of due process of law,” said William A. Orme, executive director of the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Gao, the former deputy editor-in-chief of the defunct Economic Weekly newspaper, is one of more than 20 journalists detained in the past four years on charges ranging from leaking state secrets to “counterrevolutionary sabotage and incitement.”