>...Li Jinhua and Yan Jinhong were sentenced in January to
>reeducation-through-labor for 18 months and 12 months, respectivly.The
>two had been arrested in 1998 after leading Steelworkers in Sichuan to
>protest unpaid wages by blocking a railway.(These guys got a lot of
>friends in this neck of the woods). Zhang Xucheng was arrested for
>participating in the same protest and is still awaiting sentencing.
>Also in January, Zhang Shanguang, the founder of the short-lived
>Association to Protect the Rights and interests of Laid-off workers,
>unsucessfully appealed the 10-year sentence he received in December
>1998...