At any rate, I did mention that the official reason Tan was tried was for comments he made about the Tiananmen Sqaure protests. I haven’t seen anything, at least in the Western media, about his ties to Falun Gong, which would certainly make him even more of a government target. Where did you find that?

Many of Tan’s supporters — and even neutral observers — think the real reason the Chinese government wants him behind bars is because of a few things:
1) there hasn’t been any sentences related to Tiananmen in a decade;
2) his comments were made overseas and largely went unnoticed, so any charges about inciting subversion seem like a dubious claim because certainly it couldn’t have been a serious effort that would merit 11 years in prison, which Tan’s lawyer says is the maximum possible;
3) he was arrested just before he was about to release the results of his independent investigation, which likely would have criticized and embarrassed the government; and
4) Huang Qi was arrested in 2008 for his attempts to hold the government accountable for the deaths of thousands of children.

http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_505ece690100ijqy.html

it seems to single out Tan working with overseas Falun Gong media outlet Sound of Hope (funded by US government via the NED, Friends of Falun Gong run by NED veteran Ambassador Mark Palmer) on their 6/4 propaganda.

His Sichuan quake investigation is not what got him in trouble.

Happy birthday to your mom!