China has sentenced a man to five years in prison for protesting against the Beijing Olympics. The sentence was passed only a month after the Foreign Minister of China told David Miliband, the British Foreign Secretary, that police would offer a cup of tea to any Chinese protesting against the Olympics.

Yang Chunlin gathered thousands of signatures on a petition about disputed land that read: “We don’t want the Olympics, we want human rights.” The unemployed factory worker said that he was trying to help local villagers, but he was detained and put on trial last month.

A court in northeastern Heilong-jiang province handed down a sentence of five years against Yang, the maximum penalty that he faced, for subverting the power of the State. It is a charge that the authorities commonly use in response to dissent.

Yang, 52, had gathered more than 10,000 signatures, mostly from farmers engaged in disputes with local authorities that were taking their land for development. Yang Chunping, his sister, said that he was arrested because of essays that he posted online that were critical of China’s Parliament, the ruling Communist Party and communism in general. She said: “He said he’s not guilty, and he was just exercising his freedom of speech and publication. But . . . he said there was no use in appealing.”

Prosecutors said that the petition stained China’s international image and amounted to subversion. But that is at odds with remarks made by Yang Jiechi, the Foreign Minister, during Mr Miliband’s visit last month. Then Mr Yang said: “No one will get arrested because he said that human rights are more important than the Olympics. This is impossible.”

Yang’s case is one of two dissident trials being closely watched overseas. The second involves Hu Jia, a prominent dissident and human rights campaigner who went on trial in Beijing last week also for subversion.

China said security would be tightened once the Olympic flame arrived in Beijing on March 31, before its journey around the world. An attempt will be made to take a second torch to the top of Mount Everest. A Tibetan sports official said that the climb would go ahead under tight security.

“The region’s torch relay leadership team will closely coordinate and cooperate with all concerned units . . . guarding against disturbances and sabotage by the Dalai clique,” he told the Tibet Daily newspaper.

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