Zhou Yongjun was a leader of the Beijing Students' Autonomous Union, one of the most visible groups in the protests at Tiananmen Square, which ended on June 4, 1989 in an army crackdown that killed hundreds, possibly thousands.

Zhou's family was told of the charges against him Wednesday by police in southwestern China, more than seven months after he was reportedly seized trying to return after years in the United States, his brother Zhou Lin said.

"They told us the charges concerned fraud. But we are still unclear on the situation. We are waiting for more information," Zhou Lin told AFP by telephone.

Zhou was charged in the family's home city of Suining in Sichuan province.

He said Zhou had a "green card" denoting permanent residence status in the US -- a fact likely to make his arrest a touchy issue with Washington.

In Washington, the State Department later confirmed that its embassy in Beijing had raised Zhou's reported arrest with the China's foreign ministry.

"We are disturbed by reports that prominent Chinese human rights activist Zhou Yongjun has been charged with fraud after months of detention in China," State Department spokesman Ian Kelly told reporters. "The embassy in Beijing has raised our concerns with the ministry of foreign affairs."

Zhou, 41, has lived in the United States for many years, his brother said.

Zhou was seized by authorities in the southern city of Shenzhen on September 30 as he tried to enter China to visit his family, according to China Human Rights Defenders, a network of domestic and overseas activists.

Zhou Lin said he did not know how his brother could have committed fraud in China, given that he had been out of the country for so long.

US-based activist group China Support Network, which promotes democracy for China, denounced Zhou's arrest.

"It is exceedingly bad form for the Chinese government to create a new Tiananmen-related controversy at the very time that world attention is turning to the 20th anniversary of Tiananmen Square," group director John Kusumi told AFP in an email.

"(Zhou) was stopped when entering China. So, he could not have committed any crime within Chinese jurisdiction. The government's charges are simply not credible," he added.

Several calls by AFP to police headquarters in Suining went unanswered.

The country's Communist Party rulers are bracing for the sensitive anniversary of the June 4 crackdown, which remains a taboo subject in China.

Dissidents already reported being detained and harassed on the April 15 anniversary of the death of reformist communist leader Hu Yaobang, which sparked calls for political reform that led to the demonstrations.

New York-based Human Rights Watch released a report Wednesday calling on China to end its "ongoing efforts to censor history, crush dissent, and harass survivors" of the events of 1989.

"The Chinese government should recognise that 20 years of denial and repression have only caused the wounds of Tiananmen to fester, not heal," the group's Asia director Sophie Richardson said in a statement.

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