A Chinese court on Thursday upheld an 11-year prison sentence for prominent dissident Liu Xiaobo for writings that called for multi-party democracy -- perceived threats to the Communist Party's monopoly on power.

Liu's lawyer, Shang Baojun, told reporters his client's appeal to the High Court had been rejected with no change in his sentence, which was meted out in December by the Beijing Intermediate People's Court.

Liu, 54, was convicted of subversion for helping organise the "Charter 08" manifesto, which called for sweeping political reforms. He was detained shortly before it was released online in December 2008, and tried a year later.

Before that, he was prominent in student-led pro-democracy protests centred on Beijing's Tiananmen Square that were crushed by armed troops on June 4, 1989.

It is the second sentencing this week of a Chinese dissident. A Chinese activist who sought to document shoddy construction that contributed to deaths in China's devastating 2008 earthquake was sentenced to five years in prison for subversion, his lawyer said on Tuesday.

Tan Zuoren was formally accused of inciting subversion of state power in emailed comments about the bloody crackdown on June 4, 1989, on pro-democracy demonstrators around Tiananmen Square.

But Tan's supporters and Amnesty International say he was detained because he planned to issue an independent report on the collapse of school buildings during the Sichuan earthquake, in which more than 80,000 people died.


Reuters