Shanghai, China - A prominent activist in China's underground Protestant church has been released from a labor camp after serving a two-year sentence, a U.S.-based monitoring group reported Wednesday.
Zhang Yinan, 47, left a camp near the central China city of Zhengzhou on Sunday, according to the China Aid Association, headquartered in Midland, Texas.
China's officially atheistic Communist authorities allow worship only in tightly controlled state churches, and those who meet outside — often in members' homes — are routinely harassed and fined, and sometimes sent to labor camps.
While underground church organizers can receive sentences of several years in prison, China Aid Association President Bob Fu said international attention given to Zhang's case had persuaded China to give him a relatively light punishment.
"We urge the Chinese government to release all the prisoners of conscience like Mr. Zhang," Fu said in an e-mailed statement.
After Zhang's release, police confiscated his identification card — needed to check into hotels and board planes — apparently to restrict his travel, the group said.
Officers who answered phones at Zhengzhou's two labor camps for men said they were not authorized to release any information about prisoners.
Zhang was sentenced in 2003 without trial as permitted by Chinese regulations on the charge of attempting to subvert China's government and political system.
Zhang had been active in documenting the history of the underground church movement and advocating unity among its various sects, which often compete for converts and bicker over religious dogma.
Up to 50 million Chinese are believed to worship in unofficial Protestant congregations, far more than the 10 million followers claimed by the official Protestant church, which is called the "Three-Self Patriotic Movement."