Prominent Chinese dissident freed from jail (Reuters)

BEIJING, Jun (Reuters) – One of China's most prominent dissidents, Hu Jia, was reunited with his family early on Sunday after serving three-and-a-half-years in jail on subversion charges, but he needed rest and was not ready to speak in public, his wife said.

Hu, 37, was convicted in 2008 for "inciting subversion of state power" for criticizing human rights restrictions in China, and was seen by some supporters as a potential recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize before it went to another jailed Chinese dissident, Liu Xiaobo, last year.

"He is back home with his parents and me," his wife, Zeng Jinyan, told Reuters in a brief telephone interview.

"I don't know if he can speak later. At the moment, I want everything to be peaceful. I'm worried that doing interviews at this stage might cause problems. Please understand."

Hu's long-scheduled release followed this week's abrupt freeing from detention of the prominent artist and activist Ai Weiwei, and has come while Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is visiting Europe on trips to Hungary, Britain and Germany.

Asked how Hu's health was, his mother, Feng Juan, said by telephone: "It's so so. He was in a very good mood. The first thing he did after coming home was to take a bath. Then he had a meal."

China's Communist Party has cracked down on dissent since February, responding to fears that uprisings across the Arab world could also inspire challenges to its one-party rule, especially ahead of a leadership succession late in 2012.

Many dissidents detained in that drive have been ordered by authorities to stay silent after their release. Hu's wife, Zeng, and other advocates have voiced concern that Chinese authorities might also impose restrictions on him amounting to house arrest after his formal release.

Zeng, a prominent activist in her own right, told Reuters in late May that she was worried by the trend of rights activists coming under informal house arrest after their release from formal detention or jail.

"If we are put under house arrest or disappear, I don't want our daughter to be with us when we endure life under house arrest," she said. "I have sent her to be with my relatives."

Zeng posted messages on Twitter, the micro-blogging site, describing harassment from authorities before Hu's release.

"A prohibition on contact with the media was a condition of Hu Jia's sentence, with the one year's deprivation of political rights on his release, and no doubt the authorities will remind him of that," said Phelim Kine, a researcher for Human Rights Watch, a New York-based advocacy group that has denounced the conviction of Hu and other Chinese dissidents.

"Given the current climate of oppression, he will be under extreme pressure to obey," Kine said by telephone.

ENERGETIC CAMPAIGNER

Hu and Zeng have live in an apartment complex in east Beijing called Bobo Freedom City. Many police officers and security guards patrolled the area on Sunday morning.

"A sleepless night and Hu Jia came home at 2:30. Peaceful. Very happy. Needs a period of time to recuperate," Zeng wrote in her latest Twitter entry in Chinese. Most Chinese people lack the know-how to read Twitter, which the government blocks with a censorship firewall.

Hu was detained in late 2007 and then tried and convicted in the following year on subversion charges that stemmed from criticism of the government he had made in Internet writings and interviews with foreign reporters.

China often uses the broad charge of "inciting subversion" to punish dissidents, and when Hu was convicted, state media said that he had bowed to the accusations against him.

Before he was jailed, Hu pursued an energetic career as an environmental protection campaigner, advocate for rural victims of AIDS, and vocal critic of China's restrictions on political dissent. Shaven-headed and wearing bookish spectacles, he was a familiar sight at activist gatherings in Beijing.

Hu is also a vegetarian and Buddhist who has criticized China's controls on that religion in Tibet and voiced sympathy for the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader reviled by Beijing.

Asked about Hu's future plans, Zeng said her husband studied law in prison and has no plans to move abroad.

"According to law, if you have any criminal record you cannot become a lawyer. But he is studying to gain more comprehensive knowledge," Zeng said in May.

"I think he has very clear and fixed ideas about the future, but we don't know what the conditions will be like (after he gets out) ... I think he will (focus) on rights defending."

(Additional reporting by Michael Martina and Benjamin Kang Lim; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

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Chinese dissident freed; more surveillance feared (AP)

BEIJING – A prominent Chinese political activist imprisoned for sedition was released Sunday at the end of his more than three-year sentence, his wife said, though his freedom could be limited by continued surveillance.

A major figure in China's dissident community, Hu Jia advocated a broad range of civil liberties before he was imprisoned in 2008. His 3 1/2-year prison sentence was set to end Sunday.

He returned home before dawn, Hu's wife Zeng Jinyan said in an online message. "Safe, very happy. Needs to recuperate for a period of time," Zeng said in a Twitter message.

No one answered Zeng's phones on Sunday, but she had said earlier she would announce his release on Twitter. She had visited him on Monday at the Beijing Municipal Prison.

Hu, 37, is known for his activism with AIDS patients and orphans. The sedition charge stems from police accusations that he planned to work with foreigners to disturb the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

Hu's release comes amid one of the Chinese government's broadest campaigns of repression in years as Beijing has moved to prevent the growth of an Arab-style protest movement.

Like other dissidents released recently from jail, Hu might be kept under some sort of continued detention in his home, although such restrictions are illegal in China.

Hu's release comes several days after outspoken Chinese artist Ai Weiwei were released after nearly three months in detention. He was one of the most prominent activists detained in China's sweeping crackdown on dissent, which began in February.

In a posting last week, Zeng said that upon his release, Hu, who suffers from a liver ailment, would be deprived of his political rights for one year and will not be able to speak to the media.

"For this one year, the focus should be on treating his cirrhosis, caring for parents and child, to avoid being arrested again," she wrote.

In late 2008, Hu won the European Parliament's top human rights award, the 50,000-euro ($72,000) Sakharov Prize. Hu was honored in Strasbourg, France, where because he was in prison, his name was placed in front of an empty seat.

China's Communist-run government heaped scorn on the award, with Beijing calling Hu a criminal.

Initially an advocate for the rights of HIV/AIDS patients, Hu expanded his efforts after the government gave little ground and he began to see the country's problems as rooted in authorities' lack of respect for human rights.

Hu used the Internet and telephone to chronicle the harassment and arrests of other dissidents and also published a series of articles criticizing the authorities for using the Olympics to mask serious human rights abuses.

In recent months, hundreds of lawyers, activists and other intellectuals have been questioned, detained, confined to their homes or simply disappeared in the wake of online appeals calling for peaceful protests across the country similar to those in the Arab world. Though no protests took place, the calls spooked the Chinese government into launching the clampdown.

There are concerns that extra-judicial tactics will be used against Hu, including illegally detaining him, said Human Rights Watch senior Asia researcher Nicholas Bequelin.

"Of course we are happy to have him be released, the problem is that we are not sure he is going to be released to freedom, but rather that he is going be again under some form of limitations to freedom, such as house arrest or monitoring and harassment by the authorities," Bequelin said before Hu's release.

Another activist, Chen Guangcheng, and his wife have been kept under an unofficial house arrest in their village in eastern China since he was released from jail last fall, and reporters trying to visit them have been kept away by thugs who patrol the village.

Chen angered authorities after documenting forced late-term abortions and sterilizations and other abuses in his rural community, but was sentenced for instigating an attack on government offices and organizing a group of people to disrupt traffic, charges his supporters say were fabricated.

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US 'very pleased' with China's release of dissident (AFP)

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The United States on Friday welcomed the release from prison of Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei but voiced deep concern over China's broader crackdown on critics.

"We are very pleased with the release of Ai Weiwei, and we welcome that step," Kurt Campbell, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, told reporters.

"However, the United States continues to be deeply concerned by the trend of forced disappearances, arbitrary arrests and detentions and convictions of public interest lawyers, writers, artists, intellectuals and activists in China for exercising their internationally recognized human rights," he added.

He said he intended to raise these issues when he holds talks Saturday with his Chinese counterparts in Honolulu.

Ai was freed late Wednesday because of his "good attitude" in confessing to tax evasion, his willingness to repay taxes he owes, and on medical grounds, the government said.

His detention in April during a major government crackdown on activists launched in February sparked criticism led by rights groups and Western governments.

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