BEIJING >> A Chinese court sentenced a longtime activist to 10 years in prison for inciting subversion Friday over his online articles urging democratic change, a heavy penalty that rights groups say shows China’s growing intolerance of criticizing one-party rule.

Liu Xianbin, who has previously spent a decade in prison, was found guilty of inciting subversion of state power by the Suining Intermediate People’s Court in Sichuan province after a trial that lasted a few hours Friday, his wife Chen Mingxian told The Associated Press.

The trial comes amid a vast crackdown on activism in China. Dozens of well-known lawyers and activists across China have vanished, or have been interrogated, held under house arrest or criminally detained for subversion. The restrictions may reflect government anxiety about possible protests inspired by recent events in the Middle East.

Liu’s sentence is heavy. The charge itself carries a maximum of five years’ imprisonment but courts have the power to impose longer jail sentences if the offense is deemed particularly grave.

Chen said her husband was calm and composed during the trial, and looked relatively well, but that the judge frequently interrupted Liu and their lawyer’s attempts to present a defense.

“The 10-year sentence to me, because we’ve already been through 10 years … (is) a repeat of the painful process, one in which I can only watch and wait anxiously,” Chen said.

China’s authoritarian government routinely uses the vaguely worded subversion charge to jail people it considers troublemakers. It is not the first time Liu has been accused of it.

An indictment advice issued by the Suining public security bureau points to articles Liu allegedly wrote between April 2009 and February last year that were posted on overseas Chinese pro-democracy websites.

Liu authored articles that “slandered” the Communist Party’s leadership as “autocratic rule,” and “on many occasions incited others to subvert the country’s state power and socialist system,” the police notice said, according Chinese Human Rights Defenders, a China-based rights group.