<p> A Chinese former journalist who once urged the United States to help "tear down" Beijing's online censorship regime has been sentenced to a year and a half in jail, his wife told AFP on Saturday.</p>.<p>Zhang Jialong's sentence on Friday comes more than a year after he was detained by police for "picking quarrels and provoking troubles", an accusation often used against human rights activists and dissidents in China.</p>.<p>Zhang, 32, made headlines in 2014 when he met with former US secretary of state John Kerry in Beijing and requested his help to "tear down the Great Firewall of censorship".</p>.<p>The firewall refers to the country's restrictions on citizens that prevent them from accessing international sites such as Google or reading online news critical of the Communist Party.</p>.<p>Zhang's wife Shao Yuan told AFP she learned of his sentence from his lawyer on Friday, sparking mixed feelings about the outcome.</p>.<p>He has already been in detention since August 2019, the time which counts towards his sentence, meaning he will likely be released before Chinese New Year, she said.</p>.<p>"Our child and I have been looking forward to his return... the process has been very long and very painful.</p>.<p>"But at the same time, I'm sad and worried," she added. "I'm sad because... such a righteous and kind person was taken and sentenced."</p>.<p>Tweets by Zhang on social media, including a series he wrote on internet freedoms and human rights, were presented as evidence in court of his ideological views, Shao said.</p>.<p>Zhang was fired from his job at internet firm Tencent shortly after his 2014 meeting with Kerry and has since maintained a low profile.</p>.<p>As a reporter for financial news outlet Caijing, he was in 2011 detained for three days over posts about the demolition of artist and dissident Ai Weiwei's workshop in Shanghai.</p>
<p> A Chinese former journalist who once urged the United States to help "tear down" Beijing's online censorship regime has been sentenced to a year and a half in jail, his wife told AFP on Saturday.</p>.<p>Zhang Jialong's sentence on Friday comes more than a year after he was detained by police for "picking quarrels and provoking troubles", an accusation often used against human rights activists and dissidents in China.</p>.<p>Zhang, 32, made headlines in 2014 when he met with former US secretary of state John Kerry in Beijing and requested his help to "tear down the Great Firewall of censorship".</p>.<p>The firewall refers to the country's restrictions on citizens that prevent them from accessing international sites such as Google or reading online news critical of the Communist Party.</p>.<p>Zhang's wife Shao Yuan told AFP she learned of his sentence from his lawyer on Friday, sparking mixed feelings about the outcome.</p>.<p>He has already been in detention since August 2019, the time which counts towards his sentence, meaning he will likely be released before Chinese New Year, she said.</p>.<p>"Our child and I have been looking forward to his return... the process has been very long and very painful.</p>.<p>"But at the same time, I'm sad and worried," she added. "I'm sad because... such a righteous and kind person was taken and sentenced."</p>.<p>Tweets by Zhang on social media, including a series he wrote on internet freedoms and human rights, were presented as evidence in court of his ideological views, Shao said.</p>.<p>Zhang was fired from his job at internet firm Tencent shortly after his 2014 meeting with Kerry and has since maintained a low profile.</p>.<p>As a reporter for financial news outlet Caijing, he was in 2011 detained for three days over posts about the demolition of artist and dissident Ai Weiwei's workshop in Shanghai.</p>