China jails author over Brainwashing book

BEIJING: Chinese authorities jailed the author of a history book critical of the ruling Communist Party for nearly two years on Friday, his lawyer said, calling the verdict "unconstitutional" as the nation marked Constitution Day.
China’s constitution grants citizens rights to freedom of speech and the press but in practice authorities are intolerant of political dissent.
A court in central China’s Jiangxi Province handed the sentence to Fu Zhibin, whose book "A History of Brainwashing", criticised "ideological control" in the country.
The author was sentenced to a year and 10 months in prison for "running an illegal business", his lawyer Zhang Zanning told AFP. The charge is often used to jail activists.
Fu is the latest person to be jailed in a crackdown on critics of the Communist Party overseen by President Xi Jinping, which has seen hundreds detained and dozens sent to prison.
The court also sentence three others involved in the book’s publication to between six months and one and a half years in jail, Zhang said.