2:44am UK, Friday December 25, 2009

Ian Collier, Sky News Online

A prominent Chinese dissident has been jailed for 11 years on subversion charges after he called for sweeping political reforms and an end to Communist Party dominance.

Protesters march in support of Liu Xiaobo in November

The sentencing of Liu Xiaobo comes despite international appeals for his release, which China sternly rejected as interference in its internal affairs.

Liu was the co-author of an unusually direct appeal for political liberalisation called Charter 08.

He was detained just before it was released last December. More than 300 people, including some of China’s top intellectuals, signed it.

The verdict was issued after a two-hour trial where prosecutors accused Liu of “serious” crimes.

“All I can tell you now is 11 years,” the defendant’s wife, Liu Xia, said.

Diplomats said they were told by Liu’s lawyers that he had been deprived of his political rights for a further two years.

The vaguely worded charge of inciting to subvert state power is routinely used to jail dissidents. Liu could have been sentenced for up to 15 years in prison under the charge.

Liu is the only person to have been arrested for organising the Charter 08 appeal, but others who signed it have reported being harassed.

The United States and European Union have urged Beijing to free Liu.

“We continue to call on the government of China to release him immediately,” Gregory May, first secretary with the US Embassy said.

Liu, a former Beijing Normal University professor, spent 20 months in jail for joining the 1989 student-led protests in Tiananmen Square, which ended when the government called in the military killing hundreds.