text: Chinese police hold veteran dissident . BEIJING 1996-08-31 Chinese police have detained veteran dissident Wang Donghai , the New York-based pressure group Human Rights in China said on Saturday . Police in Hangzhou , capital of the eastern province of Zhejiang , told Wang 's family that Wang would be sent to a study class , a euphemism for coercive ideological reform , the group said . Police gave no reason for detaining Wang on Friday and would not let his family meet him or say where he was being held , the group said . Police also would not say why Wang was being sent to a study class -- a holdover from the chaotic 1966-76 Cultural Revolution -- or say when he would be released , the group said . Wang 's family and Hangzhou police could not be reached for immediate comment . The group demanded Wang 's release and said his detention was a dangerous signal China was returning to its Cultural Revolution days . Last month , Wang , 45 , a veteran dissident of the 1979 Democracy Wall movement , was ordered to serve one year of " re-education through labour " , but released because of poor health . Re-education through labour is an administrative punishment with a maximum of three years that can be imposed by police without recourse to prosecutors or the courts . Wang was jailed for two years for organising street protests after the military crushed pro-democracy demonstrations by students at Beijing 's Tiananmen Square on June 4 , 1989 , with heavy loss of life . Chinese authorities appeared to be using administrative punishment more frequently to take dissidents out of circulation without having to go through a more complicated judicial process to impose criminal sentences , Western diplomats have said .