Chinese veteran rights activist and doctor Wang Lihong was sentenced Friday to nine months in jail for "creating a disturbance", as part of what campaigners say is a broad crackdown on dissent.
The 55-year-old, a veteran of China's 1989 pro-democracy movement in Tiananmen Square, plans to appeal the sentence in the next 10 days, her lawyer Han Yicun told AFP.
Wang was arrested in April, after online calls for Arab-style protests spooked authorities, prompting a widespread clampdown on dissent.
Rights groups say her detention was linked to her support for activists who used the Internet to call for Chinese citizens to join those planned protests, which never materialised.
She has been in detention for nearly six months already, and under Chinese law, only has a little more than three months left to complete her sentence, according to Han.
He said Wang — who went on trial last month — was in good sprits and appeared calm when the verdict was announced in a Beijing district court in the presence of her son, brother and sister.
The sentence is light compared to the five-year maximum penalty that could have stemmed from the charge — one that has frequently been used over the past years to silence anti-government protesters.
Wang has a number of prominent supporters, including artist and activist Ai Weiwei. In early August, Ai — recently released from detention himself — posted a message on his widely followed microblog on her behalf.
"If you don't speak out for Wang Lihong, you are not just a person who will not stand up for fairness and justice, you do not have self-respect," he wrote.
At the time of her trial in August, dozens of police surrounded the courtroom to keep protesters and supporters in line.
A core of supporters chanted "Wang Lihong is innocent!" outside the courthouse, eyewitnesses told AFP at the time.
A delegation of Western diplomats hoping to observe the August trial were kept waiting in a reception area and denied access to the courtroom, and journalists were not allowed into the hearing either.
