Filed at 6:59 a.m. ET

BEIJING (AP) -- Authorities in south China have charged a veteran labor organizer with subversion, one year after he was released from 11 years in prison, a rights group said Monday.

Police took Li Wangyang away last month from a hospital where he was being treated for heart and lung problems caused by beatings and physical neglect in prison, the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy said.

He was formally arrested and indicted Monday in Shaoyang, a city 930 miles south of Beijing in Hunan province, the Hong Kong-based center said. It was not clear what prompted Li's arrest, but such charges often result in lengthy prison sentences.

In another case, three men detained in late May on suspicion of organizing a large protest by steel workers in southwestern Sichuan province have also been formally arrested on subversion charges, the center said.

The arrests come ahead of the International Olympic Committee's July 13 vote on the host city for the 2008 Summer Games, a crucial test in China's quest for international acceptance. Beijing is a front-runner to host the games along with Paris and Toronto.

Li formed an independent trade union and advocated a strike during pro-democracy protests across China in 1989 that the government crushed. He was sentenced to 13 years imprisonment on charges of ``counterrevolutionary activity'' and released in June 2000, two years early and ahead of a vote in the U.S. Congress on whether to grant China low-tariff trade rights.

His health ruined by his treatment in prison, Li went on a 22-day hunger strike in February to demand the prison pay his medical bills.