China Sentences 2 Key Dissidents for Protests : Trials: They get 13 years for roles in pro-democracy rallies. Action ends cases of most prominent leaders.

Two of China’s most influential dissidents were sentenced Tuesday to 13 years’ imprisonment for their roles in the massive Tian An Men Square pro-democracy protests of 1989.

Social scientist Chen Ziming, 38, and newspaper editor Wang Juntao, 33, were convicted of incitement to subvert the government and the socialist system, the official New China News Agency reported.

Liu Gang, 30, a physicist who was a researcher at Chen’s private research organization, the Beijing Institute of Social and Economic Sciences, received a six-year sentence on sedition charges. All three men have been detained without trial since 1989, and their sentences run from the date of arrest.

Younger student leaders such as Wang Dan, 23, who was recently sentenced to a four-year prison term, played more visible roles in the seven weeks of protest that ultimately were crushed by martial law troops. But Wang Juntao and Chen, who held the top spots on a police list of seven most-wanted intellectuals issued after the crackdown, were accused by the government of being “black hands” behind the protesters.

Chen, who was also publisher of the now-banned Economic Studies Weekly, and Wang, the newspaper’s editor, have been among the leading crusaders for political liberalization in China for 15 years. Both were arrested and sent to labor camps for their roles in 1976 demonstrations at Tian An Men Square directed against radical leftists headed by Jiang Qing, the wife of Chairman Mao Tse-tung. Mao died later that year, and Jiang was soon arrested by political rivals.

Those 1976 protests ultimately helped shift power to China’s current senior leader, Deng Xiaoping, who, in 1978 and 1979, permitted a brief period of openness and democratic ferment that helped him discredit his remaining leftist opponents. At that time, Wang and Chen, who had been released, helped edit “Beijing Spring,” a dissident magazine that called for democratic reforms.

Within a few months, however, Deng launched a political crackdown. Wang and Chen escaped arrest, but authorities sent several other key democracy activists to prison. Most famous among them was Wei Jingsheng, 40, editor of another late-1970s political journal.

A letter-writing campaign calling for Wei’s release played an important role in developing the political climate that led to the spring 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations.

Wei, who according to sketchy reports has suffered from both physical and mental ailments during his confinement, is expected to be released in three years. Wang and Chen, hit with the harshest sentences meted out to any of the 1989 protest leaders, now head a new generation of political prisoners.

Other virtually unknown protesters, however, have suffered worse fates. During the first three weeks after the 1989 crackdown, the state-run media reported executions of at least 27 protesters in various cities. None were prominent leaders. Most apparently were ordinary workers who responded with rioting after the army shot its way into Beijing. Official reports on executions of protesters were soon discontinued, apparently after authorities realized what effect this was having on Western opinion.

Trials of student and intellectual leaders began only last month. With Tuesday’s action, courts have now dealt with the cases of the most prominent protest leaders. During this wave of trials, 17 individuals have received sentences ranging from 2 to 13 years.

While the heaviest punishment has fallen to Wang and Chen, their exact roles are still unclear.

Tuesday’s court decision, according to the official New China News Agency, finds Wang and Chen guilty of having “wantonly incited some persons to subvert the people’s government and the socialist system.” The court also said they helped organize the crowds of people who resisted the Chinese army’s push into Beijing on the night of June 3-4.

During their brief trials, which were closed to foreign correspondents and the general public but open to some family members and selected observers, Wang and Chen refused to concede guilt, according to Chinese familiar with the proceedings.

It is clear, however, that Wang and Chen gave important behind-the-scenes advice to student leaders. Some reports published in the Western media after their arrests credited them with playing key roles in drafting the demands and tactics that enabled student protesters to ultimately draw sympathetic crowds of hundreds of thousands of Beijing residents into support for their cause.

Legal scholar Chen Xiaoping, 29, who is no relation to Chen Ziming, was also convicted Tuesday of unspecified “serious crimes” but was “exempted from criminal punishment . . . for voluntarily giving himself up to the police and showing willingness to repent,” the New China News Agency reported.

This apparently means that Chen Xiaoping, who was closely associated with Wang, Chen Ziming and Liu, either has been released or will be soon. There was no official indication of what other forms of punishment he might face. Former political prisoners are frequently warned not to speak with foreign reporters.

It is not known how many people detained in the 1989 crackdown still await trial, but most estimates run in the hundreds. The U.S. State Department, in a recent human rights report on China, estimated that at least 1,000 suspected dissidents arrested in the crackdown have been imprisoned in “labor re-education camps” without ever facing formal trial.