UPDATE ON RELEASE: "Beijing Frees Jailed Activist Xu Zhiyong," by Sky Canaves, The Wall Street Journal

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August 23, 2009

BEIJING -- Chinese authorities unexpectedly freed from jail a prominent legal activist on Sunday after an increasingly vocal campaign against his detention by China's growing ranks of citizen activists.

Xu Zhiyong, a co-founder of the now shuttered legal-research and advocacy group, the Open Constitution Initiative, was taken from his home by police before dawn on July 29 and formally arrested for tax evasion three weeks later. The Beijing tax bureau had ordered the OCI to pay 1.4 million yuan (about $200,000) in back taxes on contributions, including hefty fines, a decision Mr. Xu was trying to appeal before he was detained.

Human-rights groups and legal experts said the tax charges were a pretext for jailing Mr. Xu and shutting down the group, which represented families of children sickened during last year's melamine-tainted-milk scandal, and also advocated against illegal detentions.

Mr. Xu said he didn't know the reason for his sudden release, but the public campaign "definitely could have had an influence." Speaking by phone, he said Zhuang Lu, another OCI staffer detained around the same time, also was released Sunday. Still, Mr. Xu said he might yet face prosecution.

Chinese Internet censors blocked Mr. Xu's name from search engines in mainland China. But activists managed to launch a campaign, largely online, to focus attention on the case.

The movement shows an "increasing awareness of the important role of law in society," says Li Fangping, one of Mr. Xu's lawyers.

After the OCI's Web site was shut down, other members of the group, a loose association of lawyers, academics and volunteers, relaunched the site on a server outside mainland China. Through Aug. 13, its online campaign had raised almost 850,000 yuan from mainland citizens to help pay the fines.

Another coalition, including bloggers and college students, started an offshore Web site dedicated to Mr. Xu's defense, www.WeZhiyong.org. Slogans on the site read, "Anyone can be Xu Zhiyong" and "tens of thousands of Zhiyongs are not in jail, but they are on the road to jail."

Joshua Rosenzweig, a senior researcher with the U.S.-based human-rights group Duihua Foundation, said Mr. Xu's release on bail indicated that authorities were treating him differently from political dissidents, who often are charged with more serious crimes of subversion.

"It shows the difference between this kind of case and a purely political case," Mr. Rosenzweig said. "Xu Zhiyong is not a dissident, unless you really stretch the definition of dissident."

Mr. Rosenzweig said the rare use of bail shows that the authorities "might be wavering" over Mr. Xu's case, although he doesn't rule out tax evasion and other charges.

The campaign for Mr. Xu attracted unusually wide support. "Many people who seldom talk about politics have come out" in support of Mr. Xu, says Jean Yim, a Ph.D. student in the sociology department at the University of Hong Kong. Ms. Yim and a friend organized a talk on Mr. Xu's case in Hong Kong on Saturday, which they made available to Internet users in mainland China via Twitter, and through video and audio files.

One computer programmer, who normally sells tech-geek-themed T-shirts on China's largest online shopping platform, Taobao.com, said he was moved by the unfair treatment of Mr. Xu to create an iron-on badge to sell to supporters, with all proceeds going toward Mr. Xu's legal defense. The programmer, who declined to be identified, said he had sold about 200 badges reading "Xu Zhiyong, True Man" before his Taobao account was suspended on Aug. 20 for selling prohibited items.

Wen Yunchao, a blogger from Guangzhou, urged people to send postcards to Mr. Xu's detention center calling for his release. Last month, Mr. Wen organized a similar postcard campaign on behalf of a fellow blogger detained by police in eastern China. The blogger was released after two weeks, though Mr. Wen says it is difficult to say whether the postcards had any direct impact on the outcome.

"What's important is for people to become aware and to participate," says Mr. Wen. "This promotes civil society."