China’s first cyber-dissident given 12-year jail term: court

BEIJING: China’s first “cyber-dissident”, whose website reported on sensitive topics including human rights, was sentenced to 12 years in prison on Monday for leaking state secrets, a court said.

Huang Qi ran a website called “64 Tianwang” -- named after the bloody June 4, 1989 crackdown on Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protesters.

His sentence is one of the harshest meted out to a dissident since President Xi Jinping came to power in 2012, according to court records.