This archive collects source material on the case of Sun Dawu (孙大午), the Hebei rural entrepreneur and founder of the Dawu Agricultural and Animal Husbandry Group, who was sentenced to eighteen years’ imprisonment on July 28, 2021.
Case timeline (as reported)
- 1985 — Sun founds the Dawu Agricultural and Animal Husbandry Group in Xushui, Hebei, starting with 1,000 chickens and 50 pigs (Wikipedia).
- 2003 — Sun is arrested after a fundraising dispute; he is sentenced to three years’ imprisonment with a four-year suspended term for “illegal use of public funds” and released after trial. Following the case he is ordered to keep a low profile (Wikipedia, citing South China Morning Post).
- 2019 — Sun publicly accuses the government of covering up the extent of an African swine fever outbreak that infected one of his farms (Reuters).
- November 2020 — Sun is detained along with more than twenty relatives and employees, following a violent land dispute with a neighboring state-run farm. NPR reports the detainees were held in a form of secret house arrest (“residential surveillance at a designated location”) for more than five months before formal charges; detainees’ accounts, relayed by the defense team, describe windowless rooms with lights on around the clock (NPR, July 28, 2021).
- April 2021 — Prosecutors announce charges (The New York Times, via Wikipedia).
- July 15–27, 2021 — Twelve-day trial before the Gaobeidian District People’s Court, held behind closed doors. Sun pleads not guilty; his legal team alleges torture and forced confessions and asks the court to exclude the evidence; the court rejects the request (Wikipedia, citing South China Morning Post). Sun is reported to have gone on a hunger strike during proceedings (Wikipedia, citing SCMP).
- July 28, 2021 — The court sentences Sun to eighteen years in prison and fines him 3.11 million yuan. Nineteen relatives and employees are sentenced to terms of fifteen months to twelve years (NPR). RFA reports Sun’s eldest son Sun Meng received twelve years and his brothers Sun Dehua and Sun Zhihua twelve and nine years (RFA, July 28, 2021).
- September 10, 2024 — Reuters reports Sun is fighting his conviction from behind bars.
Key sources
- NPR: “Chinese Billionaire Sun Dawu Is Sentenced To 18 Years For ‘Provoking Trouble’” (July 28, 2021) — nprillinois.org
- Reuters (via The Business Standard): “Chinese farm boss Sun Dawu sentenced to 18 years in jail” (July 29, 2021) — tbsnews.net
- Chinese Human Rights Defenders: “The Chinese government must end its reprisals against agricultural entrepreneur and philanthropist Sun Dawu and his associates” (July 2021) — nchrd.org
- RFA (via GlobalSecurity.org): trial coverage, July 16, 2021 — globalsecurity.org ; sentencing coverage, July 28, 2021 — globalsecurity.org
- Wikipedia: “Sun Dawu” — en.wikipedia.org (tertiary; 14 cited references incl. WSJ, SCMP, NYT, BBC, Guardian, VOA)
Evidence note
The Gaobeidian court’s own sentencing announcement was published on its WeChat account (reported via Reuters) — the official narrative is available only secondhand through international reporting, not directly verified. Claims about torture and forced confessions rest on statements by Sun’s defense team and reporting by CHRD/RFA, not on independent findings. Sun’s current prison location and sentence status after September 2024 are not documented.
Related records
Sun Meng (eldest son, 12-year sentence), Sun Dehua (brother, 12-year sentence), and Sun Zhihua (brother, 9-year sentence) are separate individuals sentenced in the same case — do not merge into Sun Dawu’s record. Note: the RFA sentencing report identifies a “Sun Dehua” as Sun Dawu’s brother sentenced to twelve years in the same trial; verify against the roster’s Sun Dehua entry before treating them as the same person.
For the narrative profile, see Sun Dawu (孙大午).