Beijing sets the critic-doctor free

It was said that a Chinese military surgeon who exposed the scope of Beijing's SARS outbreak and later asked the government to admit it made mistakes in the 1989 assault on pro-democracy protesters has been set free from detention.

According to Seattle Post Intelligencer, Dr. Jiang Yanyong alarmed Chinese leaders when he wrote a letter dated Feb. 24 urging them to declare the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests a patriotic movement. He asked for a "resolution of errors committed by our party" and a reversal of the official verdict that the nonviolent demonstrations were a counterrevolutionary riot.

As the Asia News informs, Jiang’s US-based daughter Jiang Rui made the announcement of the release. She had urged Chinese authorities to reveal where they were holding her father. She said that her father was freed on the night of July 19. “He called home this morning, July 20,” she said, “and told me: I just got back.”

Several AsiaNews sources claim that it is impossible for Dr. Jiang to be completely free, and that it is likely he is still under some form of duress. According to the same sources he was confined to Military Hospital No. 309, near the Summer Palace, on the western side of Beijing.