Chinese activist Tan Zuoren, who probed whether substandard construction of school buildings was to blame for the heavy toll in the 2008 Sichuan earth quake, was awarded a 5-year jail term on Tuesday.

Curiously, none of the charges filed against Tan was related to the Sichuan probe, but pertained to the 1989 pro-democracy protests in Beijing's Tiananmen Sqaure, and he was formally charged for inciting subversion over the student protests.

It is widely believed that the arrest was not so much a case of Tan's alleged involvement in the Tiananmen protests as his independent probe into the Sichuan quake. The massive quake which rattled China in 2008 had killed 80,000 people including several school children.

Tan's arrest in April last year came even as he was drafting a report into the collapse of several school buildings in the tremor.

Trial of Tan held in Changduin in August last year was adjourned without a verdict. After summing up by lawyers, it took the trial judge hardly 10 minutes to pronouce the sentence. Pu Zhiqiang, one of the lawyers who represented Tan, said his client planned to appeal against the verdict.

Human rights activists who termed the verdict 'a big step backwards for the Chinese legal system' said Tan was penalised for speaking out the truth.

Source: Political: Chin...