
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, February 5, 1994                   TAG: 9402050118
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: B5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Baltimore Sun
DATELINE: BEIJING                                LENGTH: Short

CHINA FREES 3 IMPRISONED DISSIDENTS

China, continuing to play hostage politics in the face of mounting U.S. pressure over its human rights abuses, announced Friday it had released three more imprisoned dissidents this week.

The best known is Xiao Bin, 46, a worker sentenced in 1989 to 10 years in jail for telling ABC-TV and others about the violence he witnessed during the military crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of unarmed protesters were killed in the assault.

Liao Yiwu, 34, a poet in Sichuan Province, was released Monday, two months early from a four-year sentence for "counter-revolutionary incitement."

Ding Junze, 52, a philosophy professor in Shanxi Province, was given a medical parole Wednesday from a 12-year jail term that began in 1990. He is suffering from a heart condition and spine ailments.

Ding was jailed for organizing an autonomous student union at Shanxi University during the 1989 protests, Asia Watch said.

by CNB