CNN, August 6th 1999

BEIJING (AP) -- A Chinese court has sentenced a member of the China Democracy Party to 13 years in prison for subversion, the fourth such heavy jail term imposed on organizers of the banned group this week.

Liu Xianbin, a 31-year-old who began his activism during the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests, was sentenced by a court in Suining, in the southwestern province of Sichuan, said his wife, Chen Mingxian.

His sentence equaled that imposed on party leader Xu Wenli, whose 13-year jail term handed down late last year was the longest sentence for a Chinese dissident in three years.

The severe sentences signal the government's resolve to crush all challenges to the Communist Party's monopoly on power.

Earlier this week, three other members of the China Democracy Party were given lengthy prison terms for their part in the would-be opposition group formed by dissidents last summer.

On Thursday, a 41-year-old former bank official, She Wanbao, was given a jail sentence of 12 years by a court in Guangyuan City, also in Sichuan, for his involvement in the China Democracy Party, his wife said.

On Monday, a Beijing court sentenced two other organizers of the group, Zha Jianguo and Gao Hongming, to nine and eight years imprisonment, respectively, also for subverting state power.

Liu's wife, mother and sister-in-law attended the hearing in Suining on Friday. They said Liu, who did not have a lawyer to represent him, spoke in his own defense.

"We had no chance to speak together, since the court officials took him right away," Chen said. "But our eyes did meet a couple of times when he was brought into the courtroom."

Liu spent two years in jail for his involvement in the 1989 demonstrations that the government crushed. He helped establish a branch of the China Democracy Party in Sichuan province and later took a leading role on a committee to coordinate party activities in 14 provinces and cities, traveling the country to meet other dissidents.

Liu was arrested on July 2. He is the ninth China Democracy Party member sentenced since early May -- all of them on subversion charges. In all, some 20 members of the group could be sentenced this month, the Information Center said.

She planned to appeal, but the Information Center said Liu did not intend to, on the grounds that his sentence was "political persecution." Appeals by dissidents are invariably rejected.

Since imprisoning the China Democracy Party's leaders late last year, Chinese authorities have broadened their crackdown to include the group's lower-level organizers, decimating the movement.

About 200 party members have been detained in the past four months and at least 65 are still in custody, according to the Hong Kong-based Information Center.

The crackdown is part of a campaign to quash dissent ahead of the politically sensitive 50th anniversary of Communist Party rule on October 1. Chinese leaders want to prevent dissidents from tapping into mounting public discontent over unemployment, official corruption and stagnating incomes.

China last month also outlawed a popular meditation group, accusing it of seeking to develop political power. The ban underscored Communist Party leaders' anxiety about any potential threats to their authority.