The Chinese writer Zhu Yufu has become the latest dissident to be put on trial for inciting subversion, according to a Hong Kong-based human rights group.

Mr Zhu, 60, who was arrested in April last year over a supposedly contentious poem, was put on trial this morning in the eastern city of Hangzhou, said the Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy. No verdict was immediately announced but his wife Jiang Hangli, who attended the trial with the couple’s son, Zhu Ang, said she feared that he could join other dissidents recently given prison terms of nine years or more for subversion.

“I hope he won’t face trouble, but that’s a wish. I don’t think that they’ll let him off lightly," Ms Jiang said told Reuters before the trial. Afterward, Zhu Ang said his father appeared listless and exhausted in court, but was “mentally together".

The prosecutors cited Mr Zhu’s poem It’s Time, as well as text messages that he sent using the Skype online chat service, said his lawyer Li Dunyong.

“[The Hanzhou police] took his computer away from his home and went through it," he said. “His Internet contacts and password were saved on it, with automatic access, and when the police accessed it they could open the records of text messages saved on Skype. He had not erased the records."

Skype’s online telephone and messaging service has become popular among Chinese activists as a cheap and relatively secure way to communicate.

Mr Zhu, who has been imprisoned twice before, was among a group of writers and intellectuals targeted by the Chinese authorities as they fought the spectre of “jasmine revolution" street protests.

He was one of the last to be arrested and charged with “subversion of state power", and at the time of his arrest his supporters said they feared he would receive harsh punishment.

Other dissidents arrested or “disappeared" last year have recently emerged to face trial and long prison sentences amid warnings from lawyers that human rights abuse in China is on the rise. Three have received nine and ten-year prison terms for subversion or inciting subversion over the past two months.

Mr Zhu’s crime was apparently in It’s Time over the internet, one verse of which appeared to call on ordinary Chinese to “use your feet and take to the square to make a choice".

A version of the poem that has circulated on the Internet, declares: “It’s time, Chinese people!/ The square belongs to everyone/the feet are yours/it’s time to use your feet and take to the square to make a choice."

Zhu Ang said his father was not advocating subversion, “but urging progress, which is nothing illegal".

The poet has denied that “the square" is Tiananmen Square, the epicentre of pro-democracy protests in 1989. But it was published as jittery Chinese officials attempted to crush any attempts at an equivalent of the Arab Spring at home.

Although there have been no serious protests against the Chinese Government, in the months between February and May last year dozens of activists, lawyers, bloggers and other perceived troublemakers were detained, interrogated or arrested.

Among the most prominent victims of the crackdown was Ai Weiwei, the artist, who spent 81 days in detention before being released to round-the-clock surveillance and a ban on travel outside Beijing.

News International Associated Services Limited