The United States has called on China to release four human rights lawyers and activists who were convicted of subversion last week.
Attorneys Zhou Shifeng and Gou Hongguo and activists Hu Shigen and Zhai Yanmin were sentenced to between three and seven-and-a-half years in jail by a court in China's northeastern city of Tianjin.
"We urge Chinese authorities to release the lawyers and rights defenders who are imprisoned or in detention, including those already sentenced," State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said in a statement on Monday.
The four sentenced last week are among dozens of people linked to a Beijing law firm who have been swept up in a crackdown on dissidents since July last year as President Xi Jinping's administration has tightened control, citing a need to boost national security and stability.
"More than a dozen other attorneys and activists detained on and around July 9, 2015, including Li Heping, remain in pretrial detention without access to their families or to legal counsel of their own choosing," the State Department statement said.
