1.   Political dissidents are sentenced to long terms of imprisonment.

2.   ...political dissidents.

3.   Although he never called himself a political dissident and was never jailed as one, he often poked fun at totalitarianism in oblique references in his poetry.

4.   Among them was the repeal or revision of several colonial-era laws giving him sweeping powers to crack down on political dissidents and break up demonstrations.

5.   And local police refused to guard the embassy, and sometimes beat up political dissidents right in front of the building, according to an American official.

6.   As a lawyer he often defended political dissidents.

7.   Both Yu and Tian said it was usually not hard to distinguish between a sane, committed political dissident and a person who is lost in delusions.

8.   But despite his public declarations, Fox met with a small group of political dissidents on the island in a gathering engineered by Castaqeda.

9.   But he promised himself to use his growing reputation as a friend of China to gently promote better treatment of political dissidents.

10.   But the impending changes seem to have provoked officials around the country to speed up the prosecution and sentencing to long prison terms of political dissidents.