Chinese Cyber-Dissident Gets 6 Years

A Chinese activist accused of posting subversive articles on the Internet was sentenced to six years in prison for "defaming" the government, state media said Monday.

The official Xinhua News Agency said Zhang Jianhong was the former editor in chief of a Chinese Web site called "Aiqinhai," or "Aegean Sea," and had written articles that defamed the Chinese government and amounted to agitation aimed at toppling the government.

The sentence comes amid a government campaign to tighten control over China's media and the Internet. Dozens of people have been detained in recent months after posting political essays online.

Xinhua said Zhang's sentence was handed down by the Ningbo Intermediate People's Court in Zhejiang province in eastern China.

Citing a court statement, Xinhua said Zhang had slandered the government and China's social system in more than 60 articles published on overseas Web sites. Xinhua did not give any specific examples of Zhang's writings.

It said the court had showed leniency toward Zhang because he showed remorse after his arrest.

Calls to the court in the city of Ningbo south of Shanghai were not answered Monday night.

According to the media rights group Reporters Without Borders, Zhang was charged last September with inciting subversion against the state, a vaguely worded charge authorities frequently use against activists they deem potentially threatening to the ruling Communist Party.

Zhang was involved with the 1989 pro-democracy movement and spent 18 months in a labor camp for writing "counterrevolutionary propaganda," the rights group said.