Beijing - Chinese authorities have added three more months to the sentence of a Shanghai woman serving one-and-a-half years in a labour camp for her campaign to abolish China's family planning policies, a human rights organisation said on Wednesday.
Mao Hengfeng's original sentence was handed down by the Shanghai Public Security Bureau in April 2003. She was informed last month of the extension, according to a statement from New York Human Rights in China.
"The recent increase in Mao's sentence appears to be another sign of retrenchment by the Beijing government in regard to human rights issues," said Liu Qing, the group's president.
China imposed a policy of allowing one child per family about 30 years ago, following a post- World War II baby boom. Couples who have unsanctioned children have been subject to heavy fines, job losses and forced sterilisation.
Mao has been petitioning and protesting China's family planning policies for about 15 years.
Since her second pregnancy in the late 1980s, Mao has been assigned to psychiatric wards, coerced into an abortion, and removed from her job.
Last month, US State Department officials testifying before Congress on China's family planning policy used Mao's case to argue that the country's birth-planning laws and policies are harshly coercive. - Sapa-AP