Beijing Frees 573 Arrested in ’89 Protests : China: Officials say they showed repentance. Jailed student leaders reportedly are still held.

BEIJING —  Chinese authorities announced Thursday the release of 573 people arrested for taking part in last year’s pro-democracy demonstrations and unrest.

The Ministry of Public Security said the prisoners had pleaded guilty and “showed repentance,” the New China News Agency reported. It gave no names and did not say when the prisoners were released.

Nor did it say how many might remain in custody in connection with the pro-democracy movement and anti-government activities. According to other sources, about 800 were arrested. These sources said that none of the student leaders arrested last year were among the prisoners released.

The authorities Thursday announced harsh new punishment for Communist Party members involved in such things as slander, illicit sex, lavish weddings and costly funerals.

Under new guidelines published in state-run newspapers, the party’s 48 million members were warned that they will be severely punished or expelled for “immoral behavior.” This was broadly defined as including, among other things, the failure to support one’s family members and to defend state property.

Analysts said the guidelines are an indication that despite last week’s decision to lift martial law in Beijing, there has been no letup in the crackdown after troops opened fire on the pro-democracy demonstrators last June.

The announcement was viewed as a key element in the party’s campaign to improve its image. The pro-democracy movement gained wide popular support by calling attention to corruption in the party hierarchy.

Jiang Zemin, who replaced the reformer Zhao Ziyang as party general secretary after the June crackdown, has warned corrupt officials that they will be expelled unless they mend their ways. The government has announced the execution of party officials found guilty of corruption in the past six months. A front-page editorial in Wednesday’s edition of the Communist Party newspaper People’s Daily said that party members “who have no good political quality, who trim their sails by chance . . . must be dismissed.”

Also on Wednesday, Premier Li Peng and a senior police official, Qiao Shi, who heads the party’s discipline committee, were quoted by the New China News Agency as thanking the party’s State Security Bureau for its “work on the secret battle front” and for “being willing unknown heroes.”

The People’s Daily emphasized that the anti-corruption drive has led to the closure of more than 1,600 state-run companies used by corrupt officials as private money-making machines. More than 1,000 others, it said, were shut down for similar violations as of last November.

The closures will throw tens of thousands of people out of work, adding to a worsening unemployment problem. Western economic analysts estimate that as many as 30 million of China’s 550 million laborers are out of work. Millions of them have left rural areas and crowded into cities.

The new moral guidelines were also seen as an effort to ease bitterness among the poor against well-to-do party officials. China’s austerity program, aimed at bringing down inflation, has widened the gap between rich and poor.

The ban on lavish weddings and funerals, for example, clearly seemed to be a move to eliminate high-profile extravagance.