AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in Beijing

Cyber-dissident Huang Qi, who was convicted of subversion for publishing political information on his website, has been freed after completing his five-year sentence, a rights group said yesterday.

However, Mr Huang, who was released from a prison in Sichuan province on Saturday, had been placed under house arrest, the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders said.

He was sent to his parents' house in a village three hours by train from his own home in the Sichuan capital Chengdu and was told that he could not leave there without police permission.

Mr Huang, who could not be reached for comment, was often beaten by guards and inmates during his first few months in prison, Reporters Without Borders said. His health deteriorated because guards forced him to sleep on the ground for 18 months, it said.

Mr Huang would be unable to receive proper medical care in the village, the group said. His wife and son would also not be able to live with him as they must live in Chengdu, where his wife works and his child goes to school.

"We are very pleased that Huang Qi has finally been reunited with his family after five years of imprisonment during which he was often mistreated," the group said. "We nonetheless call for the lifting of his house arrest so that he can go and live in his own home, with his wife and child."

Mr Huang was arrested in June 2000 for creating a "subversive" website - www.6-4tianwang.com.

The website soon became a forum about people who vanished into police custody, usually because of their political or religious beliefs.