Beijing, April 5 (Reuters): China freed a noted AIDS activist detained for two days over his plans to commemorate democracy protesters who died in the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown, Chinese sources said.

Hu Jia, a crusader for AIDS awareness and other causes, was detained on Saturday after writing an article in which he appealed for justice for the Tiananmen victims and declared his intention to hold a memorial service near the square.

He was freed today after his case came under foreign media spotlight. “He got out at 3:15 this afternoon (0715 GMT),” said one source close to Hu, who told Reuters Hu was at his side.

“But he cannot talk right now. He hasn’t eaten for two days,” he said of Hu, 30, a vegetarian who has written that the Tiananmen massacre led him to take up Buddhism.

Police and state security are on alert for protests ahead of the 15th anniversary of the June 4, 1989, crackdown, when troops and tanks converged on the central Beijing square to disperse protesters, killing hundreds or possibly thousands.

Last week, state security detained three prominent members of the “Tiananmen Mothers”, a group of women activists who lost sons or husbands in 1989, and held them for five days. One of them had tried to ship T-shirts commemorating the anniversary into China.

In March, police questioned Jiang Yangyong, the 72-year-old doctor who blew the whistle on China’s 2003 SARS coverup, after he sent a letter urging the Communist Party to reappraise the 1989 demonstrations. The official line remains that the protests constituted “a counter-revolutionary rebellion”. Hu wrote the article reflecting on his experiences in 1989 after a recent meeting with Jiang and a key AIDS activist, doctor Gao Yaojie.

“The present government should render justice to the innocent victims of June 4, 1989, who died from the violent actions of the military,” he wrote.

“Their families should be paid compensation. June 4 should be declared a national day of mourning with the flag at half staff. The government should acknowledge that this was a serious catastrophe, a great mistake by the government in power at the time.” He wrote that he planned to hold a memorial at Beijing police headquarters just off Tiananmen Square on April 15, anniversary of the 1989 death of former party chief Hu Yaobang, whose death triggered the nearly two months of student-led protests.

Beijing newspapers published a new city government notice on Saturday warning that people carrying banners, chanting slogans, blocking public transport, immolating themselves or otherwise disrupting public order will be dealt with according to law.