A retired physics professor has been freed after spending seven years in a Chinese prison for attempting to set up a branch of the banned China Democracy Party. Tong Shidong, 71, was freed from Chisan prison in Yuanjiang, Hunan province, Thursday morning and taken to the provincial capital of Changsha, the South China Morning Post reported Friday. The China Democracy Party was founded in 1998 to challenge the Communist Party’s monopoly on political power. Tong, a former professor at Hunan University, had drafted a founding declaration for a local chapter of the party, which was posted online. He also wrote essays calling for an end to one-party rule and the implementation of a multi-party democratic system, and published a political journal called Opposition Party. Tong was convicted of subversion by the Changsha Intermediate People’s Court in December 1999 and was handed a 10-year jail term. Prison authorities twice reduced his sentence because of good behavior and his age, according to the U.S.-based Dui Hua Foundation, which monitors human rights in China. Tong’s early release comes ahead of President Hu Jintao’s visit to the United States next month. © Copyright 2006 by United Press International

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