A Russian journalist won release after 46 days of forcible confinement in a psychiatric hospital, a case that human-rights groups likened to the Soviet-era practice of locking up dissidents in clinics.

Larisa Arap, 48, who had written an article on maltreatment of children at a mental clinic in the northern city of Apatity, was hospitalized against her will on July 5. Doctors at the clinic released her yesterday after intervention by Human Rights Commissioner Vladimir Lukin, his spokeswoman, Natalya Mirza, said by telephone.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists had written to President Putin asking him to secure Ms. Arap’s release. Mr. Putin, a former KGB colonel who was elected in 2000, has tightened control of political life in Russia, squeezing opposition parties out of Parliament and eliminating most independent press and broadcast outlets.

Ms. Arap, who belongs to an opposition movement led by former world chess champion Garry Kasparov, was taken away in an ambulance after visiting a doctor for a routine health check needed to extend her driving-license, Marina Litvinovich, a spokeswoman for Ms. Kasparov, said.

Hospitalized in the northern port city of Murmansk, she was injected with drugs that weakened her, caused her tongue to swell, blurred her vision, and affected her balance, CPJ said, citing her family.