Chinese activist Tan Zuoren has been jailed for five years for investigating the high death toll in the Sichuan earthquake in 2008. He was convicted on charges of inciting subversion of state power.

Mr Tan was trying to find out how many of the earthquake deaths were the result of substandard building work. 80,000 people died in the disaster, including many children who were in schools that simply collapsed when the earthquake hit.

Tan Zuoren previously published critical internet articles about the suppression of the pro-democracy movement in China in 1989 but Amnesty International believes that the earthquake investigation was the direct reason for his arrest.