Free china reformist Liu Xiaobao

 A chinese court sentenced Liu Xiaobo, china's most prominent dissident, to 11 years in prison for criticizing the government, an unusually long sentence that rights activists say suggests other activists will also face harsh punishment.

The charges against Mr Liu, 54, a former university professor who was also imprisoned after the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, were based on six articles he published on the internet and his role in organising Charter 08, a petition which called for the end to one-party rule in china. He is to appeal against the sentence, his wife said at the weekend.

The beijing No. 1 Intermediate People's Court announced Friday its ruling that Mr. Liu was guilty of "inciting subversion of state power."

The 53-year-old scholar had spent more than a year in detention before his trial Wednesday, which lasted less than three hours.

Mr. Liu plans to appeal the decision, said one of his lawyers, Ding Xikui. "There were some flaws in the procedures of the trial," he said, but he declined to comment further. Appeals on sensitive political charges almost never succeed in china, where political directives often supersede the written law.

Mr. Liu has pushed for democratic reforms since the 1980s, and was a participant in the 1989 protests on tiananmen square in beijing. He was detained by authorities last year shortly after he helped write Charter 08, a call for sweeping legal and political change, which hundreds of other scholars also signed.

The letter, which has since attracted thousands of signatures of chinese citizens, is seen as one of the boldest challenges to communist party rule in recent memory.

Mr. Liu's lawyers said he could have faced a 15-year sentence, but rights groups said the 11-year sentence was still harsh.The verdict and lengthy sentence, and the fact they were delivered on Christmas, was seen as a rebuke to the outcry from foreign rights activists and governments over Mr. Liu's case. President Barack Obama, visiting china last month, pressed Beijing to respect "universal" human rights such as free expression, and U.S. officials have repeatedly raised the Liu case with chinese officials.

"The severity of the verdict against [Mr. Liu] suggests that the chinese government is ready and willing to take an unyieldingly harsh line against human-rights activists in the year ahead," said Phelim Kine, an Asia researcher with New York-based Human Rights Watch.

"The show trial of Liu Xiaobo by the chinese authorities is a scandal.We call on President hu jintao to reverse this injustice and to release Liu and the scores of other chinese who have been imprisoned for simply speaking their minds," said Kwame Anthony Appiah, president of the PEN American Center. Mr. Liu is a member of PEN.

The brevity of the proceedings led many supporters of Mr. Liu to say the trial was just a formality

Liu Xiaobo has signed as one of 10,000 Chinese the charter 08, a call to more democracy and human rights in China. In Christmas 2009 Liu Xiaobo was condemned to 11 years of custody. At a time in which Chinese authorities believe the attention of the democratic world is lower than commonly. For this reason a Twitter page was opened on the 1st of Christmas Day

The charter 08 was written in 2008 by "a total of 303 people under it a known Tibetan blogger, lawyers and a fallen from favour former official of the communist party. In spite of menacing arrest they stepped as a first signatory to the public. The charter 08 demands 19 measures to improve the situation of human rights in china., Among the rest, an independent justice are required to found the freedom, unions and an end of the one-party system."

In 2008 the first constitution of china passed 100 years. "To the sixtieth spot the general explanation of the human rights, to the thirtieth spot the equipment of the democracy wall was a year since in peking and for the tenth time the chinese signature under the international pact about middleclass and political rights." The charter is one of the rare documents written in china which ask the ruling communist party of china to grant bigger freedom of speech and to admit free elections. His name is an allusion to the charter 77 with which dissidents practised criticism to the communist regime of Czechoslovakia."

10,000 concerned chinese citizens had signed in December, 2009 already the charter 08. An extremely courageous step! A small however important step to follow these people about Twitter by mouse click without our Internet access is closed or one rings in the front door.