China has released and expelled the Swedish human rights worker Peter Dahlin who was detained on subversion charges earlier this month as part of a broadening crackdown on activists and lawyers.
Mr Dahlin's release follows condemnation of his detention from the EU, including a sharply worded statement from Germany. The Swedish Foreign Ministry confirmed that the 35-year-old had been expelled.
Mr Dahlin was co-founder of the NGO Chinese Urgent Action Working Group, who became the first foreigner to make what rights activists say was a forced confession on state TV on charges relating to subversion.
The official Xinhua news agency said Mr Dahlin had been planted by "Western anti-China forces" to gather negative information about China and bolter opposition to the Communist Party.
Urgent Action was not legally permitted to operate in mainland China, and his detention comes as the government prepares to introduce fresh legislation that will severely limit the ability of overseas non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to operate in China.
While there have been mixed messages on rights from different EU nations, the European Union External Action described Mr Dahlin's arrest and detention as part of a "worrying trend" while the German government said the use of televised confessions was "extremely worrying" and called on the Chinese authorities to "observe their legal responsibilities."
Dissident crackdown
On Twitter, Amnesty International spokesman Nicolas Bequelin wrote: "Amnesty welcomes Peter Dahlin's release, but it remains that his detention was a clear escalation in the ongoing crackdown on Chinese activists."
Mr Dahlin and his group fell foul of an increasingly intense crackdown under President Xi Jinping, as Beijing seeks out dissidents and human rights lawyers which it sees as a threat to Communist Party rule in China.
Hundreds of lawyers and rights activists, from free speech activists to journalists to feminists, have been rounded up and accused of state subversion.
He was held on accusations of "providing funds for criminal activities" and his appearance on TV came just days after Gui Minhai, also a Swedish citizen and one of five missing Hong Kong booksellers who published gossipy books about the ruling Chinese Communist Party elite, made a bizarre confession on state broadcaster CCTV.
Jerome Cohen, a China law expert at New York University, wrote in a blogpost that Beijing had chosen to release Mr Dahlin because it had made its point, which was to spread fear and intimidation throughout both domestic and foreign legal and NGO worlds.
“Now, having been widely condemned internally as well as externally, they ease the criticism by releasing the accused after what appears to be a reasonable, if secret, bargain.
"This is similar to the release of rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang after a prosecution that shocked many and occasioned strong protests, yet ended in an apparently less harsh than expected outcome after a complex negotiation," said Mr Cohen.
"Unfortunately, most PRC rights advocates are not protected by the fame and connections of lawyer Pu or artist-activist Ai Weiwei or by the pressures of a foreign, friendly government. For them, shock, awe and prison remain the order of the era!"
The Swedish foreign ministry said it remained concerned about naturalised Swedish citizen Gui Minhai, a Hong Kong-based bookseller who had vanished in October in Thailand.
Mr Gui, who disappeared while on holiday in Thailand, made a tearful confession on Chinese TV, saying he had voluntarily surrendered to Chinese authorities in October last year over his alleged involvement in a fatal hit-and-run incident in China 12 years ago.
