BEIJING - A PROMINENT Chinese labour leader has been freed after serving a seven-year prison term for subversion, where he endured beatings and persecution, his daughter and a rights group said on Tuesday.

Yao Fuxin, 58, was released on Monday from a prison in north-east China's Liaoning province where he had campaigned for workers rights amid widespread factory closures in the nation's industrial rust belt.

'When he got out of prison, workers gave him a big banquet and thanked him for all the suffering he has gone through,' Yao Dan, his daughter, told AFP.

'He is very happy to be out of prison. Right now he has no real plans other than recovering his health and treating his heart illness.'

Due to beatings and persecution during his early years in prison, Mr Yao, has difficulty walking and suffers heart disease, she said, adding he suffered two heart attacks during his prison term.

He was detained in 2002 after speaking at a peaceful demonstration involving at least 5,000 workers from six factories in Liaoyang city, where he lived and worked, the New York-based Human Rights in China said.

HRIC said he had been demanding back wages and pension payments for workers laid off from the region's state-run enterprises, and had vocally demanded investigations into alleged corruption by factory bosses and local officials.

Mr Yao was initially charged with 'gathering a crowd to disrupt social order', but that was later changed to the more serious charge of subversion, based on his alleged involvement in the banned China Democracy Party, HRIC said.

'It is tragic for Yao and for China that a labour activist who was demanding back wages and pension payments was imprisoned for seven years and abused,' Sharon Hom, director of the rights group, said in a statement.

'Instead of cracking down on workers, the authorities need to focus on protecting their basic rights.' -- AFP