Jailed Chinese Dissident Released

A Chinese dissident has been released after serving six years in prison for helping organize a would-be opposition party, and he said Saturday that he still hoped to promote democracy for China.

Liu Shizun said his health was “not too bad” after his release from prison Friday. Liu said he was put in solitary confinement during portions of his prison term, but didn’t mention any specific abuse.

“Right now, I’m just going to spend some time with my wife and child,” he said in a telephone interview from his home in the northeastern city of Dalian.

Liu, 42, was among more than two dozen organizers of the China Democracy Party imprisoned on subversion charges after a crackdown in 1998.

In sentencing him in 1999, the Dalian Intermediate People’s Court said he helped veteran democracy campaigner Xu Wenli set up branches of the China Democracy Party in Beijing and in Tianjin in 1998, and in Dalian in 1999.

Xu was sentenced to 13 years but was released for health reasons in 2002. He is now a visiting scholar at Brown University in Providence, R.I.

Liu said he had been contacted by former colleagues in the democracy movement, but didn’t have firm plans.

Although he said he still wanted to pursue the democratic cause, Liu suggested that organizing an opposition party might not be the best way.

“Following the change in the times and the changes in China’s situation, we can find an even more suitable way of bringing democracy to China,” he said.