Critic of party Jiao Guobiao accused of subversion is moved to new location

Staunch Communist Party critic Jiao Guobiao has been released from the Beijing detention centre where he was taken on subversion charges this month, but remains in police custody, a rights group said yesterday.

Jiao, the former journalism professor who was sacked from Peking University in 2005 for a widely circulated essay attacking the party's propaganda agency, was taken away by Beijing police on September 12 for "inciting subversion of state power" with provocative comments about the East China Sea islands dispute.

Chinese Human Rights Defenders said yesterday that Jiao was released from Beijing's Haidian police detention centre over the weekend, but was being held by police at a hotel in Beijing. His exact location is unknown.

A friend of Jiao said his wife, who is in the United States, was also unsure about where her husband was. She did not know whether Jiao was released on bail or put under "residential surveillance" - a form of detention conducted outside a jail.

The authorities have in the past put activists and dissidents under such surveillance in a bid to silence them. Calls to Jiao's mobile phone were met with a message saying his line was suspended.

The Haidian detention centre declined to comment while Beijing police did not immediately respond to questions.