China Jails Human Rights Campaigner

A blind civil rights activist who campaigned against forced abortions and abuse of disabled people was sentenced to four years in prison by a Chinese court yesterday.

The verdict against Chen Guangcheng comes amid one of the harshest crackdowns on dissent in recent memory.

In an apparent attempt to stifle opposition before world attention shifts to Beijing for the Olympics in 2008, the government has detained legal experts and clamped down on the media.

The Yinan county court in Shandong province found Chen guilty of damaging property and "organising a mob to disturb traffic". The activist's supporters claim the charges were trumped up by local officials who want to punish Chen for exposing their wrongdoing to the world.

No one had expected a not guilty verdict as China's judges have to obey the orders of communist officials.

The reluctance of central authorities to intervene in the case had been apparent for the previous 10 months in which Chen had been kept under house arrest and occasionally beaten by thugs employed by local government.

A team of legal experts from Beijing who had flown to Shandong to represent the defendant were detained by police so they could not attend the solitary hearing. His wife and other supporters were kept under house arrest throughout the trial.

Chen's supporters said the main testimony in the case came from three people who lived in Chen's village. They were allegedly tortured by police for 17 days until they confessed to collaborating with the activist. In a secret trial last week they were given a seven-month suspended sentence and then released.

Chen's brother said the family were shocked at the severity of the 51-month jail sentence.

"The verdict is far worse than we expected," said Chen Guangfu. "The charge was that my brother incited other people to smash an official vehicle. But how could he have done that? He hasn't been allowed to leave his house for almost a year and his phone signals are blocked. The maximum penalty for this kind of offence is a fine of 5,440 yuan (£370). But they have given him more than four years in prison. It is utterly unbelievable."

Defence lawyers said they had not been informed that a judgment was due. "This is an evil verdict," said Li Fangping, a member of the defence team. "It is totally unfair."

Chen was a symbol of a new breed of peasant advocate. A self-taught "barefoot lawyer" from a village in Shandong province, he built a reputation by winning compensation for blind people like himself denied tax breaks and other benefits guaranteed by state law.

Last summer Chen grabbed international headlines by launching legal action on behalf of the victims of forced abortions and sterilisations in his home town of Linyi.