Beijing activist sentenced to 8 yeas in prison

By NBC News staff and wire reports/

Cao Haibo

Updated at 6:30 a.m. ET: BEIJING -- A court in China has sentenced a man to eight years in prison for trying to form an opposition party and for online messages criticizing the ruling Chinese Communist Party, a week ahead of a congress which will usher in a new generation of leaders.

Cao Haibo, 27, had called for democracy and had tried to form a party called the "China Republican Party," his lawyer, Ma Xiaopeng, said.

The court in the southwestern city of Kunming sentenced Haibo on Wednesday for "subversion of state power," Ma said. 

Ma said that Cao's party had only existed for one day online.

The sentence signals the party's resolve to crack down hard on dissent, especially as it readies for a power handover at the congress which opens in Beijing on Nov. 8.

President Hu Jintao is due to hand over his party chief position to anointed successor Xi Jinping.

Dissident author Liu Xiaobo, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2010, was sentenced to 11 years of imprisonment over his pro-democracy campaigns for the technically less serious charge of "incitement to subversion," prominent human rights lawyer Mo Shaoping told NBC News.

Cao Haibo’s wife Zhang Nian and their 3-month-old baby outside the court building in May, 2012.

"In order to be liable for subversion, the accused must have actually engaged in forming a political party to overthrow the state, with a party program, constitution and party membership, but if these facts are absent in the case of Cao Haibo, then the sentencing is wrong," he said.

"The freedom of assembly is a constitutional right, and there is important distinction between subversion and incitement to subversion, all these must be recognized," he added.

'An immature child'Ma told Reuters by telephone that he thought the sentence was too harsh.

"Cao Haibo does not understand politics in China," Ma said. "We think he's an immature child; he really did not know that the party would take it this seriously."

Cao, who was running an Internet cafe, is not a prominent dissident. Police cited Cao's text messages that he sent to friends using a popular messaging service, Ma said. More >>