Fifteen followers of the outlawed Falungong spiritual movement were sentenced to between four and 20 years in jail for hijacking cable TV networks in two northeastern Chinese cities, state media reported.
The intermediate court of Changchun city, Jilin province, sentenced the 15 following a brief trial which began Wednesday, the Xinhua news agency said.
They were charged with airing pro-Falungong messages to unsuspecting cable TV viewers in March in Changchun and Songyuan, a city about 150 kilometers (95 miles) north of Changchun.
The report did not identify the convicted.
A court official confirmed to AFP that sentences had been passed in the case, but refused to give more information.
The hefty jail terms come despite the fact that China's criminal law mandates sentences of between three and seven years for breaching broadcasting and public telecom facilities.
Earlier Friday, the China News Service carried an interview from jail with Zhou Runjun, the purported ringleader of the gang, who remained unrepentant.
Although Zhou admitted to the television hijackings she maintained that she did not break the law, it said.
"The law of 'Falun Dafa' is higher than any other laws," Zhou was quoted as saying on Thursday.
Four districts in Changchun city were affected after two trunk cable TV transmission lines were cut off, Xinhua said earlier this week.
In Songyuan city, 16,000 subscribers were affected as regular TV programs were suspended for nearly four hours, the agency said.
Zhou, in her early 50s, was arrested just days after the incident, amid a sweeping crackdown by local police, according to previous reports.
The hijacking of the airwaves in Changchun and Songyuan on the evening of March 5 was a major propaganda coup for the Falungong group, which has been brutally repressed as a cult in China for more than three years.
Falungong, also known as Falun Dafa, mixes traditional Buddhist and Taoist beliefs with mass breathing and meditation exercises.
The group has recently stepped up its campaign for the hearts and minds of the world's most populous country and is using increasingly sophisticated tactics in its information campaign.
Apart from airing their views on Chinese cable TV, they have also been reported to have hijacked the satellite signals of government-run television stations.
Falungong was banned in China in July 1999 and deemed "an evil cult," by the government, which also called the millions of followers of the group the biggest threat to one party communist rule since the 1989 Tiananmen democracy protests.