Chinese rights activist Wang Lihong was sentenced to nine months in jail on Friday in a case that has drawn condemnation from critics who see her as a victim of the Communist Party's crackdown on Internet-spread dissent. Wang was found guilty of "stirring up trouble" based on a protest in 2010, when she demonstrated outside a court in eastern China's Fujian province where three people stood trial for maligning an official.
That initial hearing drew protesters who said Wang was a victim of injustice by officials seeking to stifle dissent, but heavy security outside the verdict hearing at a local court in north-west Beijing on Friday kept the number of supporters down. Wang was detained March this year, when the Chinese government was pursuing a drive to detain and silence dissidents, persistent protesters and human rights lawyers who wary security officials feared could fan the kind of popular challenge to party rule that toppled governments across the Arab world.
Wang's lawyer, Liu Xiaoyuan, said the sentence was "relatively light" compared the maximum of five years' jail that the court could have meted out. Liu said that if Wang loses her appeal, she is due to be released in December, taking into account her time already spent in detention.
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