"The conviction and extremely harsh sentencing of Liu Xiabo mark a further severe restriction on the scope of freedom of expression in China," said Pillay in a statement issued in Geneva.

"I have noted with a lot of interest the growing role of intellectuals, lawyers and journalists in the daily life of China in recent years," she added.

"This was a positive reflection of the rapid developments that China has undergone over the last decade -- but cases such as that of Liu Xiaobo risk not just halting, but seriously reversing that momentum."

Thursday's verdict, Pillay said, is "a very unfortunate development that casts an ominous shadow over China's recent commitments to protect and promote human rights."

Liu, 53, was convicted in Beijing of "inciting subversion of state power" after he co-authored a pamphlet last year that called for human rights protection and the reform of China's one-party communist system.

inside the iron bowl
Convictions of key Chinese dissidents since 1989
Beijing (AFP) Dec 25, 2009 - Leading Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo was on Friday sentenced to 11 years in prison for subversion after he co-authored Charter 08, a bold petition calling for political reform.

The following is a list of convictions of key political dissidents in China since the 1989 Tiananmen pro-democracy demonstrations:

1989: After taking part in the Tiananmen movement, Liu Xiaobo is jailed for a year-and-a-half. He is later sent to a labour camp from 1996-1999 for seeking the release of those jailed in the Tiananmen protests and for opposing the government's verdict that they amounted to a counter-revolutionary rebellion.

1991: Wang Dan, one of the Tiananmen student leaders, is sentenced to four years in prison. Freed in 1993, he again runs into trouble with the law and is jailed for 11 years. In 1998, he is sent into exile in the United States.

1992: Bao Tong, once a top aide to purged former Chinese leader Zhao Ziyang, is sentenced to seven years in prison. Bao, arrested in May 1989, was like his former boss accused of sympathising with the Tiananmen protesters.

1994: Wei Jingsheng, who had been sentenced in 1979 to 15 years in prison for "counter-revolutionary crimes", is again sentenced to 14 years in jail after being granted conditional release in September 1993. He is sent into exile in the United States in November 1997.

2005: Journalist Shi Tao is sent to jail for 10 years for "divulging state secrets", after posting on a foreign Internet site a governmental decree barring all media from covering the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen events.

2006: Blind lawyer Chen Guangcheng, known for fighting abuses of China's one-child family planning policy, is sentenced to four years and three months in prison for "damaging property and organising a mob to disturb traffic".

2006: Lawyer Gao Zhisheng is given a three-year suspended sentence for subversion just before Christmas but then was immediately placed under house arrest and put on probation for five years.

2008: Hu Jia is sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison after a one-day trial earlier this month on charges of inciting subversion of the state, after publishing articles critical of the government on the Internet.

2009: Huang Qi, who campaigned for the parents of children killed in the massive earthquake in Sichuan province in May 2008, is sentenced to three years in prison in November on a state secrets charge.

2009: Liu Xiaobo is sentenced to 11 years in prison for subversion after co-authoring Charter 08, which calls for bold political reform.

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