People read books in a bookstore in Qingdao, east China's Shandong Province, April 21, 2019. (Photo: Xinhua)

A court in Central China has sentenced 12 people to various prison terms for illegally publishing readings about Party and state affairs. 

The accused were convicted of violating state regulations by illegally reprinting and selling huge volumes of publications, which seriously endangered the social order and disrupted the legitimate publishing market, said the Intermediate People's Court of Yueyang in Central China's Hunan Province on Wednesday.

The court said a defendant, surnamed Xie, had published without permission various kinds of books, mainly about Party and government affairs since 2010.

The convicted were found to have posed themselves as agents of a legal publishing company. They downloaded documents and books related to major Party conferences, as soon as the conferences had ended, and compiled the material for publication.

A local bookstore in Wuhan purchased at least 44,600 volumes, worth 1.1 million yuan ($157,000) of illegally published books from Xie, and then resold the publications to bookstores across the country between 2013 and 2018, according to the court.

The accused often pretended to be staff members of Party schools or other authorities when selling the books to various Party and government agencies and institutions around the country.

Xie was sentenced to seven years and 10 months in prison and fined of 450,000 yuan ($64,330). Xie's accomplices received sentences ranging from two years to seven years plus fines.