An ethnic Mongolian dissident who completed a 15-year prison sentence last week for political crimes has been confined to a luxury hotel in Inner Mongolia along with his wife and son, according to a family member who spoke with the police earlier this week.

The dissident, Hada, has been missing since last Friday, when he was reportedly released from the detention center where he served his time for espionage and “splitting the nation.” A day later, photographs were anonymously published on the Internet showing Mr. Hada and his family sharing a meal together and wanly toasting the camera.

Like many ethnic Mongolians, Mr. Hada, his wife and their son use one name.

Human rights advocates have expressed concern that the authorities have summarily extended Mr. Hada’s punishment by preventing his return to Hohhot, the provincial capital of Inner Mongolia, which is officially known as an autonomous region.

For China’s investigative journalists, who grapple with heavy-handed censors and accusations of bribe-taking, the case of a Shanghai-based reporter appears to offer a positive turn.

The episode did not start auspiciously for the reporter, Qiu Ziming, 28. He went into hiding this week after county police in Zhejiang Province announced they were seeking his arrest for reporting on accusations of insider trading at a paper company in a four-part series in The Economic Observer, a well-regarded weekly.

But on Wednesday, Mr. Qiu’s colleagues sprang into action, publishing articles on the Internet and e-mailing links to a satirical wanted poster. Even the state-owned broadcaster, CCTV, ran a segment that revealed how the company, which went public in 2004, had used its political connections to exact revenge.

The trial of a Tibetan writer who has criticized Chinese policies in Tibet in a recent book may be postponed, according to the International Campaign for Tibet, an advocacy group. The group said in a statement on Thursday that it was unclear whether a postponement of the trial for the writer, whose name is Tragyal, would suggest that the authorities were questioning the premise of the trial or whether they were looking for more evidence. Mr. Tragyal was detained in April in Xining, after the publication of his book, “The Line between Sky and Earth.”

In an apparent bid to extend its control over the Internet and cash in on the rapid growth of mobile devices, China plans to create its own government-controlled search engine.

The new venture would be fresh competition for Baidu.com, a private company that runs China’s dominant search engine. Baidu has seen its market share grow since Google retreated from the mainland earlier this year.

On June 28, more than one-hundred Chinese journalists and scholars signed an open letter pledging a professional boycott of the Chongqing Morning Post, a commercial spin-off of the official Chongqing Daily, after the newspaper issued a statement on June 24 refuting alleged “fake reports” about police investigations of three of its employees suspected of sharing “unacceptable” content in the wake of a police raid of the Hilton Chongqing.

Journalists signing the statement argued that the June 24 statement by the Chongqing Morning Post violated the spirit of professional solidarity by attacking colleagues who were merely exercising a professional obligation to report the story of the police investigation.

According to a June 24 story from China’s Economic Observer newspaper, a reporter with the Chongqing Morning Post was sentenced to labor re-education after posting “unacceptable speech” on the Tianya Forum in the wake of the raid on the Hilton Chongqing.

The Economic Observer also said two other reporters from Chongqing Morning Post were taken in for questioning by police after sharing “unacceptable content” (不当内容) through the QQ instant messaging service.