The Chinese authorities have sentenced prominent women's rights activist Mao Hengfeng to one and a half years in a labor camp, reports said Tuesday.
The 41-year-old mother of three, who has campaigned against the strict one-child policy, is detained for the third time for criticizing the government, her husband Wu Xuewei said on Tuesday.
He has been prevented from seeing his wife when he visited the Yangpu district police detention center in Shanghai, Amnesty International said in a statement.
The human rights group fears she is at risk of torture or other ill-treatment, and believes her detention is aimed at preventing her from carrying out her campaigning work.
She was detained in Beijing on 30 September by men in plain clothes, believed to be police officers. She had traveled to attend a remembrance ceremony for fellow activist Teng Jingdi.
Amnesty called for her immediately release.
Mao Hengfeng, who lives in Shanghai, refused to abort her third child after already having twins and was detained in a psychiatric hospital and then dismissed from her job. A frequent petitioner, Mao served a year and a half of re-education through labor in 2004-2005 and two and half years in prison for "intentional destruction of property" in 2006-2008. She was released from Shanghai Women's Prison on 29 November 2008. Since then she has served another year in RTL after protesting in support of Liu Xiaobo. She was briefly released, in February 2011, but under house arrest. She was almost immediately taken again, and placed in Shanghai City Prison Hospital, where she was previously tortured and ill-treated.
Re-Education Through Labor camps are used to detain people without charge or trial and fall short of required international standards. Amnesty International said hundreds of thousands continue to be held in such facilities, and that it has received reports of systemic torture at such camps.
Mao Hengfeng has up to 60 days to appeal the sentence to the Shanghai Municipality People's Government.
The sentence comes as the authorities intensify a crackdown against human rights activists and lawyers ahead of start of the Party Congress on Thursday, which will see the transfer of power to a new set of leaders.
At least 130 people have been detained or had restrictions placed upon them since September, Amnesty International said.
For comments and feedback: editorial@rttnews.com