POLICE have sentenced labour activist Zhang Lin - held in Anhui province since June - to three years of reform through labour, his wife Ji Xiao said yesterday.
Ms Ji said by telephone that she and six friends and relatives were allowed two hours with Zhang at a detention centre in Bengbu yesterday before police sent him to a distant labour camp.
Zhang was not given a trial. Under Chinese law, police are empowered to hand down reform-through-labour sentences without going through the courts.
Ms Ji said the police charges against her husband were not made clear and no reason was given for the sentence.
However, police had been searching for her husband since local residents filed a complaint after he helped two American journalists interview peasants in Anhui earlier this year.
The dissident went on a hunger strike after police informed him of his fate a week ago.