From Associated Press via CNN.com:
One of the last remaining prisoners jailed for opposing the 1989 military crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square has been released, a human rights group reported Friday. Beijing construction worker Xi Haoliang had joined a crowd burning debris to prevent troops entering the Chinese capital early on the morning of June 4, 1989, according to some reports.
His current age has variously been given as 35 and 40. His death sentence for arson was later commuted to life in prison. That sentence was later further reduced and Xi was released from Beijing’s No. 2 Prison on Tuesday, the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy reported. [Full Text]
[Image: Armoured personnel carriers burnt by demonstrators near Tiananmen Square in June 1989, from AFP Getty Images.]
