[FBIS Transcribed Text] BEIJING, June 29 (AFP) -- Some 170 Chinese political activists have rallied around the plight of detained scholar Yang Jianli and Saturday called on the government to release all political prisoners.

They also called for allowing and allow [as received] exiled political dissidents to return to China.

"We demand the Chinese government...to immediately release Dr. Yang Jianli and return him his rights and freedom as a Chinese citizen," the letter, faxed by the New York-based Human Rights in China (HRIC), said.

Yang's arrest by state security police on April 26 has become a cause celebre for pro-democracy activists who have been seeking reforms and an end to political persecution in China, HRIC said.

Among the 170 activists who signed the letter were prominent dissidents He Depu, Xu Jicheng, Ren Wanding and Zhou Guoqiang.

Yang, a longtime advocate of democracy in China, was arrested in the southwestern city of Kunming after he had entered the country to investigate large scale labor unrest.

Chinese state media has said Yang was detained for entering China illegally.

"Dr. Yang Jianli is one of our country's best known human rights activitists and a prominent international democratic liberal who has been banned by the Chinese government from returning to the motherland," the HRIC letter said.

The activists demanded the government "welcome back to the motherland all sons of the Yellow Earth that have been forced into exile overseas and who have commonly struggled for democracy, freedom and a modern China."

The government should also release all political prisoners, including Jiang Qisheng, Xu Wenli, Wang Yongcai and Qin Yongming, the leaders of the outlawed China Democracy Party.

Yang, a permanent US resident, had moved to the United States in 1987.

He has over the years been active in promoting human rights in China and is chairman of the 21st Century China Foundation, a group he founded to raise money for research, publications and websites promoting democratic changes in China.

Yang is also a researcher on international politics and economics at Harvard University.

As a UC Berkeley mathematics student, he returned to China to take part in the 1989 Tiananmen democracy protests and contributed money to the student demonstrations, activities that led to him being blacklisted by the government.

His return to China in April was his first since 1989. [Description of Source: Hong Kong AFP in English

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Source: "AFP".