Chinese journalist jailed over 'state secrets'

China has sentenced a Chinese journalist to 10 years in prison for leaking "top state secrets" related to the bloody crackdown against 1989 Tiananmen democracy protests, state media reports.

Shi Tao, 37, posted on the Internet a central government gag order that forbade all Chinese media organisations from marking the 15th anniversary of the June 1989 crackdown last year.

Shi admitted he sent an abstract of the order to an overseas dissident web site last April, but maintained the order did not constitute a "state secret".

He was arrested in November.

The Intermediate People's Court of Changsha, which made the ruling, said Shi revealed the information after the document was read during an editorial meeting at his company, the Contemporary Business News.

The court said those in the meeting were warned the contents were classified and should not be spread outside the editorial meeting.

Shi was then the head of the central editing desk.

Xinhua reports that he emailed the main contents of the document abroad and had it published in an overseas publication and several overseas Internet portals.

The Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) had denounced Shi's trial and called for his immediate release.

China defines state secrets broadly, allowing the Government to arrest anyone for revealing a wide spectrum of information it finds sensitive.

Critics say the law is an easy way for the Government to punish journalists who speak their mind.

The communist-led Government has maintained that without using force to smash the democracy protests, China would have never enjoyed the 15 years of robust economic growth that has ensued.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of people were killed when the Chinese military stormed the capital in 1989.

The incident has remained taboo in the Chinese media ever since.

Though decades of economic reforms have empowered many in Chinese society, the communist party continues to retain a firm grasp on the media.

According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, at least 42 journalists were locked up in Chinese prisons at the end of 2004, making China the biggest jailer of journalists in the world.

- AFP