BEIJING - THE last known prisoner incarcerated for 'hooliganism' during China's 1989 Tiananmen democracy movement has been released after nearly 20 years in jail, a US-based rights group said on Tuesday.

But up to 30 people imprisoned as a result of the protests and the subsequent bloody crackdown remain in jail on other charges, including counter-revolutionary crimes, the Dui Hua foundation said.

'Liu Zhihua was the last leader of an autonomous workers' federation - independent labor unions set up during the spring 1989 protests - serving a prison sentence,' Dui Hua director John Kamm said.

'His release brings closer the day when no one in China is serving a sentence for offences committed on or around June 4, 1989.'

Liu, now 44, was charged with 'hooliganism' and given a life sentence for his role in an industrial strike in central China's Hunan province in June 1989 that opposed the crackdown on the Tiananmen democracy protests, the group said.

He was released from Loudi prison in Hunan in January this year after obtaining sentence reductions beginning in 1993.

Liu was among four workers at the Xiangtan Electrical Machinery Works that were given long prison terms for organising one of the largest industrial labour actions linked to the 1989 democracy protests, the group said.

The other jailed labour leaders are believed to have been released, Dui Hua said.

Hundreds if not thousands of unarmed protesters were killed by China's military on June 3 and 4, 1989, as communist leaders ordered an end to six weeks of unprecedented democracy protests in the heart of the Chinese capital. -- AFP