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Hu Jia wins EU rights prize

AFP

Hu Jia, pictured under house arrest in Beijing last year. The European Parliament’s prestigious Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought was awarded to the jailed Chinese dissident Hu Jia on 23 October 2008, one day ahead of a Beijing summit of the European and Asian leaders.AFP/Frederick J. Brown/China

The European Parliament on Thursday awarded a prestigious rights prize to jailed Chinese dissident Hu Jia4 on the eve of a key Beijing summit and despite pressure from Beijing not to honour him.

In a letter to a number of lawmakers and the president of the assembly, China had warned that giving the Sakharov Prize to the civil rights campaigner could damage ties with Europe.

Beijing hit out when the award was announced, calling the move “gross interference” in its domestic affairs, while Hu’s wife and other dissidents saw it as a vindication for the ailing activist’s work.

To widespread applause, President Hans-Gert Poettering told the chamber that “by awarding the Sakharov Prize to Hu Jia, the European Parliament is sending out a clear signal of support to all those who defend human rights in China.”

He said Hu had “spoken out against oppression in Tibet”, and described him as “one of the real defenders of human rights in the People’s Republic of China”.

But China’s foreign ministry said: “We express strong dissatisfaction at the decision by the European Parliament to issue such an award to a jailed criminal in China, in disregard of our repeated representations.”

“This is gross interference in China’s domestic affairs.”

Hu’s wife and dissidents welcomed the award.

“I think Hu Jia would be very happy because his work has now received everyone’s validation,” Zeng Jinyan, Hu’s wife, told AFP by telephone.

Qi Zhiyong, a longtime dissident who lost a leg after being shot during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, said: “It will help to promote the protection of human rights in China. This is a good thing for China’s people.”

In Strasbourg, the head of the EU parliament’s liberal group, Graham Watson, told AFP that Chinese officials had gone to great lengths to try to influence the result.

“By letter, by email, and they’ve even tried by telephone,” he said.

A spokesman for Poettering said the ambassador had written the assembly president a letter “in which Beijing applies pressure”, an approach described as “more counter-productive”.

“This prize is awarded in Strasbourg, not in Beijing,” Poettering said on the sidelines of the session.

The letter, from Ambassador Song Zhe, read: “The Chinese government is seriously concerned over the Sakharov prize.”

“If the European Parliament should award this prize to Hu Jia, that would inevitably hurt the Chinese peoples once again and bring serious damage to China-EU relations.

“Not recognising China’s progress on human rights and insisting on confrontation will only deepen the misunderstanding between the two sides and is not conducive to the promotion of the cause of world human rights.”

Hu, 35, is known for his campaign for civil rights, environmental protection and AIDS victims but is serving a three-and-a-half year prison sentence for “inciting subversion of state power”.

He was arrested last year after giving testimony on human rights in China to the European Parliament’s human rights subcommittee by video-conference.

China angrily called Hu a “criminal” when he was considered a top candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize earlier this month.

The Sakharov Prize, named after Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov, is in its 20th year. Previous winners will be invited to attend the presentation of the 50,000-euro (64,000-dollar) award on December 17.

EU leaders are to hold a summit in Beijing on Friday with Chinese and other Asian leaders, although China said the summit would not be affected by the award.

Rights in China are a continual issue at the summits but this time Europe is trying to get China to back international efforts to end the financial crisis.

In New York, rights group Human Rights Watch called on Beijing to immediately exonerate or grant medical parole to Hu.

“Hu Jia was incarcerated for doing nothing more than exercising rights expressly guaranteed by China’s constitution,” said Sophie Richardson, the group’s advocacy director.

“If the government won’t exonerate Hu, it should at least release him to get proper medical care.”

Others short-listed for the prize were Belarus opposition leader Alexandr Kozulin and Congolese abbot Apollinaire Malu Malu.

Past winners include former South African leader Nelson Mandela, detained Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and former UN secretary general Kofi Annan.

Copyright © 2008 Agence France-Presse

Published in AFP/Google News