Prominent Chinese dissident Hu Jia has been released after more than three years in jail on subversion charges and returned to his home in Beijing, his wife said on Sunday.
“Hu Jia arrived home at 2:30 in the morning. Safe, very happy. Needs to rest for awhile. Thanks, everyone,” his wife, Zeng Jinyan, said in a Twitter posting.
His release follows that of outspoken Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei last week.
Hu, 37, was arrested in December 2007 and convicted for “inciting subversion of state” in April 2008.
Hu started out as a HIV/AIDS and environmental campaigner before becoming increasingly critical of China’s authoritarian Communist government.
His charges related to a series of articles he had written ahead of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games in which he accused the Chinese authorities of human rights abuses.
In 2008, Hu was given the European Union’s top human rights award, the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought.