• Pandemic. Chinese censorship in times of the coronavirus: "Facial recognition should not work for them, we are all wearing masks"

In March, when in China the cases of coronavirus were counted by the thousands daily, an unexpected voice appeared in the country critical of the management of the Communist Party authorities.

In an essay, former real estate mogul Ren Zhiqiang, 69, said that limits on freedom of speech and media censorship in China had exacerbated the epidemic.

Within his text, especially the part in which he referred to Xi Jinping as a "clown without clothes" who had not known how to handle the outbreak that officially emerged in the city of Wuhan in December was particularly striking.

Days after his unusual criticism within the Chinese regime, this millionaire with more than 37 million followers on the social network Weibo (the Chinese Twitter), disappeared.

It was not until early April, when it was published that the authorities were investigating him on suspicion of "serious violations of discipline and the law."

Beijing officials had locked Ren

in a detention center on the outskirts of the capital.

This Tuesday, the Second Intermediate Court in Beijing sentenced him to 18 years in prison for corruption and to pay a fine of 4.2 million yuan (about 520,000 euros).

According to the statement issued by the capital's court, Ren had taken advantage of his position, as president of the Huayuan Real Estate Group company, to embezzle almost 50 million yuan (6.27 million euros) in public funds between 2003 and 2017. "In addition, he took bribes worth more than 1.25 million yuan and abused his power as a state employee causing 116.7 million yuan in heavy losses to state-owned companies," the court report said.

Also, the convicted tycoon would have "voluntarily confessed his crimes and admitted all the accusations."

The businessman, nicknamed Big Cannon Ren for his open criticism of the Chinese authorities these years, had also been

arrested in 2016 for questioning on social networks Xi Jinping's request

that the Chinese state media must remain absolutely loyal to the party.

Ren's parents were two high-ranking Communist Party officials.

Even the magnate had been a member of the party until his

expulsion last July for the open judicial investigation against him.

After the conviction, human rights groups such as Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) have argued that the real reason for his arrest was the direct criticism he made against Xi Jinping in an essay that was disseminated on social networks but was originally published in a Californian website called China Digital Times: "Standing there was not an emperor showing his new clothes, but a clown who had taken off his clothes and insisted on being an emperor", were the words that Ren used in reference to the role of the Chinese president during the first months of the pandemic.

Since Xi Jinping took power in 2013,

Beijing has been tightening restrictions on freedom of expression

and detaining hundreds of activists and lawyers.

A demonstration of forcefulness that President Xi began at the beginning of his term with the political purges for corruption that took away more than a million officials at all levels.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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