Rights activist Wang Lihong has been sentenced to nine months in jail for her participation in a protest, Reuters reports:
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, though heavy security outside the verdict hearing at a local court in northwest Beijing 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.
