Du Daobin, an internet writer from Hubei, a province in central China, was charged on June 11 with “inciting to subvert and to overthrow of the Chinese socialist system,” in relationship to his article “Subversion of State Power is Legal” and his other 26 pacifist online articles. He was also slapped with a three year sentence, a four year suspension, and stripped of all his political rights by the intermediate peoples' court in the city of Xiaogan, Hubei province.

Immediately after the closed door trial, Du applied for an appeal and asked for a retrial. Local police officers and officials in Du's company warned Du not to appeal, but Du's lawyer, Mr. Mo Shaoping believes their actions were illegal.

Two months later, the supreme peoples' court in Hubei province reached a second verdict.

According to Wednesday’s report by Reuters’s, the [supreme] court upheld the original verdict in Du’s case, disregarding his appeal. In his appeal, Du pointed out during the first trial, the peoples’ court did not deny the fact that his right of freedom of speech was protected by the Chinese Constitution. He also refuted the court's statement that his online articles incited subversion of state power by defamation, a criminal offence. Du insisted that the main evidence accusing him of defamation did not slander the Chinese legislative policy, and the understanding of modern laws and international laws. He believes that exercising one’s freedom of speech will not endanger the national and social security and interests, rather, rather that it can be used to specifically clarify the related international laws and the Chinese Constitution. He criticized the court's verdict as a garbled statement.

Du Daobin, 39, was a clerk at a medical insurance office in Yin city, Hubei province prior to his arrest. Du had also been actively calling for the release of Liu Di, a 23-year-old student, imprisoned without trial for posting articles on internet forums calling for democracy in China and released a year later after her arrest.

Du was arrested in October of 2003 by the Xiaogan city police, for publishing 26 articles on internet forums and was cited with inciting subversion of the government. In February 2004, the prosecutor’s office returned his file back to the police since there was not enough evidence to charge him. But on May 14, 2004, the court suddenly notified Du's family and lawyer of his May 18 trial and convicted him in June.