Chinese housing activist is jailed for unruly acts

BEIJING (AP) ? A veteran Chinese activist left disabled by past police mistreatment was sentenced Tuesday to two years and eight months in jail for fraud and provoking trouble.

Ni Yulan was sentenced by a Beijing court along with her husband, Dong Jiqin, who was jailed for two years.

Their arrest last year came as China carried out a sweeping crackdown to deter popular uprisings such as the ones that shook the Arab world.

She was convicted of causing a disturbance at a hotel where they had been detained by police. The court said the couple failed to pay 69,972 yuan ($11,100) in hotel bills between June 2010 and April 2011. Ni also was convict of posing as a lawyer and receiving 5,000 yuan through deceit ($795).

Ni and her supporters deny the charges and say she is being punished for her years of activism, especially her advocacy for people forced from their homes to make way for the fast-paced real estate development that remade Beijing for the 2008 Olympics. Her outspokenness earned her the enmity of officials and developers.

The European Union issued a statement in front of the court Tuesday saying it was "deeply concerned" about Ni's sentence and that because of her poor health she should be released immediately.

"The European Union is preoccupied with the deterioration of the situation for human rights defenders in China and will continue to follow these cases attentively," the statement said.

The sentencing took place under heavy security. The access road to the courthouse was cordoned off with a temporary check point. Dozens of police officers and neighborhood watch members patrolled outside the courthouse and kept an eye on foreign journalists and diplomats from the United States and Europe.

Ni's daughter, Dong Xuan, said she was allowed in the court but was later taken away and briefly detained by police.

Ni's sentence was relatively light compared to those handed down late last year to two longtime democracy and rights activists. Chen Wei and Chen Xi, were separately sentenced by courts in southern and central China to nine and 10 years in prison for posting essays on the Internet that the government deemed subversive.

Ni has been jailed twice before. In a June 2010 interview with The Associated Press, she described abuse she suffered at the hands of police, saying that guards had beaten her, insulted her and urinated on her face. While in detention in 2002, police pinned her down and kicked her knees until she was unable to walk, she said.

While serving her second prison term, Ni said she was deprived of her crutches and had to crawl up and down five stories and across the prison yard every day for months.

(This version CORRECTS spelling of daughter's name.)

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