A Chinese court has sentenced a longtime activist to nine months in prison for participating in a protest on behalf of a group of fellow dissidents.

A district court in Beijing sentenced 55-year-old Wang Lihong on the charge of creating a disturbance outside a courthouse in the southern city Fuzhou in 2010, where three online activists were being tried.

Wang was arrested in March of this year during a widespread crackdown of activists who took to the Internet and called for peaceful protests similar to those that swept across the Arab world.

She could have been sentenced to a maximum of five years in prison, but her lawyer says she will appeal her sentence.

Chinese authorities have imposed tight controls on the Internet as a means of stifling dissent and removing potential threats to the ruling Communist Party's hold on power.