Nobel winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel released from hospital after stroke

Human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo Pérez Esquivel was released from hospital following a minor stroke, his family said late on Tuesday.

The 90-year-old Argentine was taken to a hospital in the seaside resort of Mar del Plata on Saturday following a health scare.

Doctors performed tests including an MRI scan but had said he was stable.

"Adolfo has already been discharged and is heading to Buenos Aires to continue his recovery," his family said on social media.

An official medical report said he had an ischemic stroke, which is caused by a temporary blockage of blood circulation to the brain.

Born in a the Buenos Aires neighbourhood of San Telmo, Pérez Esquivel had since his youth campaigned against violence and in favour of the most marginalised in society.

He spent 14 months in prison and another 14 months under probation. It was during this time that he was awarded the Nobel Prize, a fact that caused bewilderment and irritation among the regime's generals, who were condemned years later for their systematic plan to eliminate and disappear opponents.

"Institutionalised violence, misery and oppression enshrine a social order that benefits a few: the rich getting richer at the expense of the poor getting poorer," he said on receiving the Nobel in 1980.

Pérez Esquivel is the son of a Spanish immigrant father from Galicia and a mother of indigenous origin from the province of Corrientes. He is a self-professed admirer of Mahatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King.

In addition to his imprisonment, there was also an assassination attempt against his life during the dictatorship era.

"Two days after the Nobel Prize was announced, we were on our way with my son Leonardo to SERPAJ, and some people came forward with guns in their hands to kill us. My son accelerated the car and luckily there was a taxi that intervened and saved our lives," he said.

In a recent interview he condemned the worldwide growth of the far-right: "It is worrying. They are totalitarian movements or philo-Nazi groups. It has to do first of all with a lack of memory."

Pérez Esquivel is one of five Argentines to have received a Nobel Prize.