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An Indonesian radio broadcaster critical of the human rights record of the Chinese authorities has been convicted of administrative violations following what he said was a years-long campaign to shut his station down.

Gatot Supriyanto Machali, the manager of Erabaru FM in Batam in Riau Islands, was sentenced to six months in prison and a year of probation by a court on Tuesday for “broadcasting without permission” and “disrupting other frequencies.”

“The root cause of the attack on Erabaru is the intervention of the Chinese regime,” Gatot said. “The government was pressured by the Chinese Embassy to criminalize me and shut the station down. In this case the authorities passed the buck to the courts.”

Another three months will be added to Machali’s jail sentence if he is unable to pay a fine of Rp 50 million ($5,800), which the court also imposed.

The government brought charges against Machali in March for broadcasting without a license, charges that carry a maximum sentence of six years in prison.

In 2008 the government rejected the station’s license. But Gatot continued to broadcast and sued the government in an attempt to regain the broadcast license.

Although an appeal of his lawsuit has yet to be heard by the Supreme Court, in March the authorities conducted a daytime raid on his station and confiscated broadcasting equipment.

A letter dated January 2007, purportedly from the Chinese Embassy in Jakarta to the Indonesian government and seen by the Jakarta Globe, called for the station to be shut down, alleging it was part of an international conspiracy to overthrow the Chinese government.

At the time of writing, the Chinese Embassy was unavailable to comment on the issue.

“We are only reporting the facts of human rights abuses in China, as well as lots of other news, because most of our listeners are Chinese,” Gatot said. “I think the news that most scares the Chinese authorities is the coverage we have done on organ harvesting from Falun Gong members.”

Falun Gong, or Falun Dafa, is a spiritual movement with an estimated 70 million practitioners worldwide. In the letter seen by the Globe, it is described as an “evil cult.”

Hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners are believed to have been imprisoned extrajudicially in China and subjected to forced labor, severe psychological and physical torture and other forms of abuse.

Gatot’s conviction drew criticism from press freedom outfit Reporters Without Borders (RSF). Jean-Francois Julliard, the group’s secretary general, wrote to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Justice and Human Rights Minister Patrialis Akbar, asking them to intervene in the case. In the letter, Julliard called the sentence “disproportionate” and said the ruling was given for “political reasons.”

“We are not only calling for his release but for his right to continue to broadcast his program,” said Benjamin Ismail, from RSF’s Asia-Pacific desk. “Even if he violated Indonesian law, the infractions he committed do not justify imprisonment and such an excessive fine. The law should be revised in order to ensure equal access to broadcasting licences, and to decriminalize these infractions.

Machali plans to appeal the verdict, which he can do within seven days.