A prominent Chinese political campaigner was sentenced to 13 years in jail today, a court in central China said.
Qin Yongmin was found "guilty of subversion of state power," the Wuhan City Intermediate People's Court said on its official website.
The 64-year-old, first jailed as a "counter-revolutionary" from 1981-1989, has already spent a total of 22 years in prison.
At the time of his arrest in January 2015, Qin was the head of the pro-democracy "China Human Rights Watch" group, which circulated online statements denouncing government policies, as well as organising discussion groups.
Qin had "refused to cooperate with the court" and remained completely silent during his trial in May, lawyer Lin Qilei had previously told AFP.
His lawyers did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the verdict today.
The verdict comes a day after Liu Xia, the widow of Chinese Nobel dissident Liu Xiaobo, left China to Germany.
She had been held under de facto house arrest -- despite no charges -- since 2010, when her husband received the Nobel Peace Prize.
Liu Xiaobo, a veteran of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, died last year while serving an 11-year jail sentence for "subversion".
Frances Eve, researcher at Chinese Human Rights Defenders, said Qin was "prosecuted for his belief in a democratic China as well as his actions in advocating for human rights."
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