A Hong Kong-based human rights organisation says a Chinese military court has sentenced a former air force general to seventeen years in prison for supporting the banned Falungong spiritual movement.

The Information Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Movement in China said General Yu Changxin, who is 74 years old, was sentenced after a secret trial for helping to promote Falungong and in connection with the deaths of a number of its practitioners.

The centre said the case had provoked dissatisfaction among some other retired generals, and quoted one of them as complaining that the party leadership had gone too far. According to the Hong Kong group, the Chinese authorities suspected General Yu of masterminding a gathering of ten thousand Falungong practitioners in Beijing last April, and arrested him three months later.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service