Red song campaign critic freed (2)

"I want them to give my son his job back and to restore his reputation. I want the re-education committee to make a public apology in the newspaper for what they have done to him," Ren Shiliu told the Global Times earlier.

A migrant worker, Ren Shiliu put his son through university by working on construction sites.

Ren Jianyu was placed in detention without a court hearing in August 2011 for writing and reposting some 100 comments criticizing the Chongqing government's controversial crackdown on crime while celebrating songs of the revolution.

A number of legal experts in China have recently called for a rethink of the re-education through labor system, after a woman, Tang Hui, was sent to a re-education center in August for disturbing social order. Tang had protested the treatment of her daughter, who she alleged had been forced into prostitution. She was later released.

The case brought to light "re-education through labor" sentences, a system of administrative detention handed down by the public security bureau rather than through the courts, a common practice that lawyers claim to be unconstitutional.