Published by: World Tibet Network News Wednesday November 19, 1997

BEIJING, Nov 18 (AFP) - Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama on Tuesday issued a statement hailing the release of China's top pro-democracy activist, Wei Jingsheng.

"We are delighted with the release of Wei Jingsheng," a spokesman for the god-king's government-in-exile in India said in the faxed statement from Dharamsala.

"We feel that this is a step in the right direction. We hope that China will build on this and release all prisoners of conscience not only in China but those in Tibet," he said.

The Dharamsala-based Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy estimates that 1,019 political prisoners are being held in Tibet, the statement said.

Wei, considered the father of China's pro-democracy movement, left Beijing for the United States on Sunday following a abrupt release from prison on medical parole.

He was serving a 14-year sentence for subversion. The statement credited the dissident with writing a letter to late patriarch Deng Xiaoping in the early 1990s warning that China's repressive rule of Tibet would only alienate Tibetans and encourage them to seek independence.

Chinese troops took control of Tibet in 1951. The Dalai Lama fled to India eight years later following a failed anti-Chinese uprising in Lhasa.