A court in China's northern region of Inner Mongolia has sentenced to death a truck driver convicted of killing a local herdsman during a standoff over pollution.
The Xilinhot Municipal Intermediate People's Court handed down the sentence to mining company truck driver Li Lindong in front of a packed court following a trial that lasted six hours.
The killing of herder named Murgen sparked weeks of angry demonstrations by ethnic Mongolians across the region as they called for better protection of their rights and of the traditional grasslands environment they say is central to their cultural identity.
A second driver, Lu Xiangdong, was sentenced to life imprisonment for his involvement in the standoff over complaints by local herding communities that strip-mining operations are ruining their environment and livelihood.
Two other men, Wu Xiaoming and Li Minggang, were each sentenced to three years' imprisonment.
The mass protests in Xilinhot city, in the Shiliingol League near the border with Mongolia, also brought students out onto the streets of the regional capital, Hohhot, sparking a massive security clampdown by armed police and People's Liberation Army troops.
The authorities have detained at least 90 people in the wake of the protests, which Beijing has blamed on "hostile overseas forces."
Heavily censored
Local authorities have pulled the plug on university bulletin boards and chatrooms since the protests began, and blocked or heavily censored popular chatroom and microblogging sites like QQ, Tencent, and Sina Weibo.
Regional Communist Party secretary Hu Chunhua, widely tipped as a rising star within the ruling party, has promised dialogue with protesters while maintaining an iron grip on the region.
An employee who answered the phone at a hotel in Hohhot said there was still a strong police presence in the city.
"This really got quite big," the employee said. "We were afraid they would come here causing trouble."
"There are a lot of police here now, and a lot patrolling the streets as well."
The authorities have sent out mass text messages publicizing the trial of the truck drivers in Murgen's killing, and the investigation into the death of an ethnic minority Manchurian youth, Yan Wenlong, during a simliar incident.
Unlikely to quell anger
An ethnic Mongolian intellectual in Hohhot, who asked to remain anonymous, said the sentencing might not quell popular anger, however.
"The problems which have been causing conflict haven't just surfaced in the past year," he said. "It's not as simple as having a trial."
"They need to implement policies which address the environmental issue in Inner Mongolia, and the issue of herders and nomadic herders' interests amid the overwhelming trend towards market economics."
And a legal expert surnamed Lan said Li and the other defendants were very likely to have received much tougher sentences because of the highly politicized nature of the case.
"There is sure to have a been a lot of pressure ... and this is likely to have made their sentences much heavier," Lan said.
Rights groups said the protests were about more than the deaths of two local people, and reflected a deep and widespread anger over continuing exploitation of the region's grasslands, the heartland of Mongol culture.
The herders are calling for an end to open-cast mining, or strip-mining, of coal in their pastures.
Xilinhot, with a population of 177,000, lies on top of vast and as yet untapped coal reserves estimated at 1.4 trillion metric tons, enough to power energy-hungry China for hundreds of years, experts say.
Environmentalists say strip-mining is one of the most environmentally destructive forms of mining, destroying the surface ecosystem over a wide area, creating noise and vibration, and releasing pollutants into the air.
Reported by Gao Shan for RFA's Mandarin service, and by Ho Shan for the Cantonese service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.