Zhao Lianhai, whose own child was one of 300,000 who became sick in the food scare that left at least six babies dead, was convicted by a Beijing court on charges of stirring up public disturbances, attorney Peng Jian told AFP.

"We will appeal," Peng said.

Upon hearing the verdict, Zhao angrily tried to tear off his prison clothing, denounced the court and shouted out that he was innocent, the China Human Rights Defenders activist group said in a statement.

The group said he also planned to launch a hunger strike.

At least six children died after consuming milk powder laced with the industrial chemical melamine, which was added to make products appear higher in protein.

Zhao was arrested last December after he rallied other victims in the scandal to protest and demand compensation. His trial opened in March but no ruling had been issued until Wednesday.

The court in Beijing's Daxing district refused comment when contacted by AFP.

The scandal led to huge recalls worldwide and spotlighted China's persistent product-quality problems. The issue re-emerged earlier this year when tainted milk powder reappeared on the market.

Zhao campaigned relentlessly on behalf of victims of the scandal, and also ran a website providing information to the families after their babies suffered from melamine-induced kidney stones and urinary tract infections.

Rights group Amnesty International swiftly condemned the ruling.

"We are appalled that authorities have imprisoned a man the Chinese public rightly view as a protector of children, not a criminal," Catherine Baber, the group's Asia-Pacific deputy director, said in a statement.

A total of 21 people were convicted for their roles in the scandal, and two were executed.

China's government insists that the country is ruled by law and that citizens enjoy the right to pursue compensation for alleged wrongs in court.

However, people who speak out on sensitive cases are often themselves charged with crimes in what human rights groups say are blatant attempts by the government to silence them.

The milk scandal had worried authorities for its potential to stir social unrest and anger at the government for failing to protect its citizens.

earlier related report
British PM, in China, urges G20 cooperation, more freedoms
Beijing (AFP) Nov 10, 2010 - British Prime Minister David Cameron Wednesday urged China to work closely with the G20 and introduce greater political freedoms on the final day of a trade mission shadowed by human rights issues.

Cameron said Chinese cooperation with the Group of 20 on trade and currency issues would "go a long way" to stabilising the world economy, but warned of a "dangerous tidal wave of money going from one side of the globe to the other".

His speech at Peking University came on the eve of a leaders' summit for the 20 biggest rich and emerging economies in Seoul set to be dominated by trade imbalances between China and the United States, plus a looming currency war.

The British premier -- who is understood to have raised the case of jailed Chinese dissident and Nobel peace laureate Liu Xiaobo with Premier Wen Jiabao Tuesday -- also urged "greater political opening" on human rights in China.

Cameron is the first Western leader to visit China since Liu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize last month to the fury of Beijing and has faced pressure throughout the two-day trip to take a firm public stand on rights issues.

The speech, his final engagement in China, came following morning talks with President Hu Jintao and a visit to the Great Wall. He later left for the summit in South Korea.

"If China is prepared to pursue further opening of its markets and to work with Britain and the other G20 countries to rebalance the world economy and take steps over time towards internationalising its currency, that will go a long way towards helping the global economy lock in the stability it needs for strong and sustainable growth," Cameron said.

But with China facing accusations from the West that it keeps the value of its currency artificially low to give its exporters an edge, the British premier also sounded a note of warning.

"The truth is that some countries with current account surpluses have been saving too much, while others, like mine, with deficits have been saving too little," he said.

"The result has been a dangerous tidal wave of money going from one side of the globe to the other."

He added that China "must" boost domestic consumption but acknowledged: "This cannot be completed overnight."

Meanwhile, Hu gave a pre-G20 interview to South Korean media in which he said foreign countries should "face their own problems" and not cast blame elsewhere.

"China will try to run its own affairs and not blame its problems on others," he said, according to China's Xinhua news agency, which published the interview.

Cameron meanwhile called on China to play a greater role in world affairs, notably on climate change.

"China has attempted to avoid entanglement in global affairs in the past. But China's size and global reach means that this is no longer a realistic choice," said the 44-year-old, who took office in May.

Cameron's visit comes a month before the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo.

Countries including Britain have said they will not heed a Chinese call for Western diplomats to steer clear of the event. Beijing has said the decision to honour Liu is tantamount to "encouraging crime".

Liu, 54, was jailed in December for 11 years on subversion charges after co-authoring Charter 08, a bold petition calling for democratic reform in one-party China that has been widely circulated online and signed by thousands.

Cameron insisted that being able to talk about human rights "makes our relationship stronger," while acknowledging disagreements and differences between the two countries.

Defending his approach, a British official said such issues were "best raised in private -- we don't get into megaphone diplomacy but if there are issues to be raised, we will raise them."

Cameron went into the trip, on which he took Britain's biggest-ever delegation of business leaders and ministers to China, saying he wanted to drum up deals worth billions of dollars.

Officials have not revealed a total figure for the amount of deals struck on the trip but it is thought to be in the low, single-figure billions of dollars.

The biggest contract announced was a 1.2-billion-dollar agreement between Rolls-Royce and China Eastern Airlines Corp under which the British group will provide jet engines to power 16 Airbus A330 aircraft.

Cameron's longer-term target is to double the level of trade in goods and services between Britain and China by 2015 from last year's 51.8 billion dollars.

His government is battling to reduce a record deficit having just imposed the steepest public sector spending cuts for decades.

del.icio.us	Digg	Reddit
YahooMyWeb	Google	Facebook

Memory Foam Mattress Review

SPACE MEDIA NETWORK PROMOTIONS Solar Energy Solutions Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison ... Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News