Sun Dawu. NOEL CELIS/AFP via Getty ImagesSun Dawu supported rights activists during a swine influenza outbreak and embarrassed officials.On Wednesday, he was sentenced to 18-years in prison for "picking quarrels" and "provoking trouble."China's government has been targeting dissidents for years in a national crackdown.Check out more stories from Insider's business page.Sun Dawu was a Chinese billionaire pig farmer and was sentenced to 18 years imprisonment. Human-rights activists described the case as "a blatant attempt at punishing Sun for his support for human rights defenders."Sun, founder of the Dawu Group agricultural giant, was charged Wednesday with multiple offenses, including "picking quarrels" and "provoking trouble". This is a common charge against people who criticize China's government.The full list of charges included "gathering a crowd and storming state institutions, obstructing government service, picking quarrels, provoking troubles, disrupting the production and operation, conducting coercive trading, illegal mining and illegal occupation of agricultural lands [and] illegal absorption public deposits."According to Chinese Human Rights Defenders, Sun was detained earlier this year by 300 police officers who raided his office and took him and 28 other people into custody.According to the Associated Press, the arrest occurred one year after Dawu Group employees clashed with police trying to stop workers from a state-run agricultural farm from destroying their building.Chinese Human Rights Defenders claimed that Sun was the victim of "apparent retaliation" for his association to rights advocates.According to the group, Sun had supported the work civil-rights activist Xu Zhiyong in the past. He was also arrested last year along with other human-rights activists, lawyers, and even during a nationwide crackdown against lawyers since 2015.The AP reported that he also embarrased Chinese officials by posting photos of dead pigs on his farm during a swine influenza outbreak last year.According to him, authorities failed to report the existence of the disease in the region. The Ministry of Agriculture confirmed that the disease was present in the area two days later, according the AP.Business Insider has the original article.
