A Chinese court has sentenced human rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang to four and a half years in jail for “subverting state power”, making him the final prominent legal activist to be convicted in a sweeping crackdown launched more than three years ago.
Mr Wang was among 130 attorneys and legal staff questioned by state agents in a nationwide swoop in July 2015. Several outspoken human rights lawyers were subsequently jailed, including Zhou Shifeng, the head of law firm Fengrui, who received a seven-year sentence in 2016.
Fengrui was at the centre of a network of lawyers who took on cases deemed sensitive by the ruling Communist party, defending dissident scholars, members of the banned religious group Falun Gong and activists alleging police torture.