Prominent Chinese activist released

A prominent Chinese dissident who was jailed for sedition more than three years ago was released Sunday, his wife said.

A major figure in China's dissident community, Hu Jia was active in a broad range of civil liberties issues 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.

There have been concerns that, like other dissidents released recently from jail, Hu might be kept under some sort of illegal detention.

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.

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 Olympic Games.

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 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.