China activist set to end protest at Japan's Narita

tauringhuang.

A Chinese dissident has agreed to end his highly-publicised 12-week protest at Tokyo's main international airport.

The man, Feng Zhenghu, has been living at Narita, blogging and posting Twitter messages to highlight China's refusal to allow him back into the country.

Mr Feng - a human rights activist who was previously jailed for three years - had visited his sister in Japan.

He said he decided to leave the airport after being visited there by Chinese embassy staff.

He has been denied entry to China eight times since June.

Terminal man

On the last of his attempts to return, he got as far as Shanghai's Pudong airport, where Chinese officials forced him to get back on a plane for Tokyo, which arrived on 4 November.

Holding a valid Chinese passport and a visa to enter Japan, Mr Feng was free to leave the airport, but refused to pass immigration control.

His decision to end the protest came after Chinese officials visited him at the airport last week - for the first time since he started camping out.

"Chinese Embassy officials came to see me several times. Now they seem to acknowledge the problem," Mr Feng told The Associated Press from the airport terminal on his cell phone.

"I've decided to enter Japan, pull myself together and return to Shanghai for the Chinese New Year."

"I believe next time I can return home," Mr Feng said.

"As a Chinese citizen, I have a right to return home."

Described by Amnesty International as a prominent "human rights defender" he has been living in a no man's land, stuck between the arrivals gates and passport control in Terminal 1.

Tens of thousands of people who pass through the airport every day see him.

Although Mr Feng says he has never seen the Hollywood film The Terminal, he agrees his situation is rather similar - although his own conditions have been much worse than in the film.

Equipped with a mobile phone and laptop he is keeping in touch with the outside world by blogging and tweeting.