China releases one of its longest-serving political prisoners, relative says

BEIJING- China has freed one of its longest-serving political prisoners, the ethnic Mongol dissident Hada, who has spent much of the last two decades behind bars, his uncle said on Tuesday.

Beijing fears ethnic unrest in strategic border areas and keeps a tight rein on Inner Mongolia, just as it does on Tibet and Xinjiang in the far west, even though the region is suppposed to have a large measure of autonomy.