Hu Jia - Sakharov Prize 2008

Chinese human rights defender, Hu Jia, was awarded the European Parliament’s 2008 Sakharov Prize for freedom of thought today during a special ceremony in Strasbourg.

He couldn’t receive the prize in person of course, because Chinese authorities put him in jail for three-and-a-half years last April for demanding more human rights in his country. His wife, Zeng Jinyan, couldn’t be here either, because in addition to being his wife, she is also a human rights activist - a cyberdissident - and Beijing confiscated her passport so she couldn’t travel out of China and attend the ceremony. Not surprising considering they won’t even let her leave her home freely. Zeng Jinyan and the couple’s young daughter have been under house arrest since 2006.

Zeng Jinyan was however able to address MEPs in a recorded video message. In a moving testimony, she said this prize was an encouragement to all human rights defenders in China: “There are now a great many exceptional people and people of goodwill in Chinese society who are going to great lengths to find ways to make the real situation in China known, and to express deeply-felt views, and the Internet is providing them with a very interesting platform. But unfortunately there is sometimes a very high price to be paid for this.” Hu Jia, like so many others, has paid this price with his freedom.

Despite all this, Zeng Jinyan said she was “full of hope of soon being able to hail the arrival of an open China.” “We are full of energy for China to become a country at peace,” she continued. She also said she and Hu Jia were planning to use the Sakharov Prize money to set-up a foundation for the families of human rights activists.

Today is also the 20th anniversary of the Sakharov Prize. On this occasion, several Sakharov Prize winners since 1998 were present. Andrei Sakharov’s widow, Elena Bonner asked the Parliament if it had really done everything it could to defend Hu Jia and his family against a state with whom Europe wants to have good commercial relations. She reaffirmed Sakharov’s belief on rights human rights: “One should never make concessions. Human rights are the basis of civilisation.”

On this 20th anniversary, Reporters Without Borders, past Sakharov Prize-winners and the European Parliament officially launched the Sakharov Network in an effort to support human rights defenders around the world. Many ideas to develop and consolidate this network are already emerging: A bureau, passports for freedom, Sakharov winners to be ambassadors for human rights in their country, a special fund. Positive and ambitious proposals which have all legitimacy to receive equally ambitious political and financial support.

The media couldn’t find many human rights defenders in Beijing last August because most of them had either been detained, arrested, expelled from Beijing or prevented to enter it.

Today is the 60^th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. One way to commemorate the event would have been to release imprisoned human rights defenders, like Hu Jia, so that he could receive his 2008 Sakharov Prize in person next week in the European Parliament. But instead, the government is arresting more on this anniversary.

Today, dozens of people who had gathered outside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs protesting that ordinary citizens would not be allowed to contribute to the document were detained. The police even flagged down a public bus to take the demonstrators away.

Monday, prominent human rights defender Liu Xiaobo was taken by police. His arrest is related to his participation in drafting “Charter 8″, a courageous call for democratic reform in China signed by 300 lawyers, writers, scholars and artists. Zhang Zhuhua was held 12 hours for questioning, his computer, books and documents confiscated.

A few days ago, three other human rights activists were detained in the south-western province of Guizhou, where they were organising a conference to mark the anniversary.

At the same time, Wang Chen, director of the State Council Information Office, has the nerve to say in an interview that “China has made historic progress in human rights.” He did acknowledge there were “still many problems and difficulties in the development of human rights,” but simply acknowledging it, on this anniversary date, while people are being dragged off by police, is a mockery.

The IOC’s timing couldn’t be more cynical. It issued this praise “fact sheet” on the same day Chinese authorities executed Wo Weihan, a scientist accused of spying for Taiwan. His daughter had launched an international appeal against her father’s execution, saying he had only admitted to these allegations after being tortured. The IOC’s fact sheet also comes days after China cancelled the EU-China Summit in protest at plans by EU leaders to meet the Dalai Lama.

Here is a little fact sheet of my own, in a point by point response to the IOC’s self pat on the back.

Emmanuelle Moreau, a spokeswoman for the Olympic Committee, said questions raised by human rights groups would be examined next year’s annual Olympic Congress in Copenhagen (1 to 9 October 2009). Human Rights Watch even called on the IOC to set up an internal mechanism that would audit host cities’ human rights record before the Games. Rendezvous in Copenhagen to see this through!

You can read other articles on this website (such as Second chance…?) which give facts on various crackdowns and broken promises in the run-up and during the Games.

This afternoon, China announced it was postponing the EU-China Summit, planned on 1 December in France, on the grounds that the Dalai Lama would be in Europe at the same time and will meet Nicolas Sarkozy in Poland on 6 December. What a turn of events! President Sarkozy went to the opening ceremony of the Olympics, he cheered and he clapped. A lot of contracts had been signed. Now, China is boycotting him!? Ironic, isn’t it? I guess there’s a limit to how far you should bow to the Chinese before you’re flat on the ground. Well… Look at the bright side. President Sarkozy will actually meet with the Dalai Lama and he can bring his Political Courage Prize along with him…

It seems that for authorities in Beijing, anti-Chinese sentiment can come from anywhere. They banned the release of the new Guns N’ Roses album, entitled Chinese Democracy. It was deemed a “venomous attack” on the nation that “turns its spear point on China.” One of the tracks refers to the Falun Gong movement. The albums website is also blocked, but according to web comments, it can be heard on some websites.

It’s never a good sign when even artistic expression gets censored…

Ni Yulan has been in police custody for nearly seven months and last week, a Beijing court gave the go ahead to developers to level her house to make way for new constructions. 47-year-old Ni Yulan is a problem for authorities in Beijing. She is one the very high profile cases of the so-called “land grab” cases. For the past ten years, she has been active in the fight against government-led expropriations and evictions of people living in hutongs - traditional neighbourhoods in Beijing.

In 2002, she spent a year in prison, accused of “damaging public property” and was beaten so badly she now walks with crutches. Last April, she was detained after trying to stop officials from demolishing her hutong. According to her husband and to a Chinese activists group, she was severely beaten at the police station.

She now stands accused of “obstructing a public official”, an offence which carries a sentence of three years. Her trial was scheduled for 4 August this year, just before the Olympic but was, not surprisingly, postponed.

In China, land in the cities technically belongs the state so authorities control how it is to be used. Activists say residents are often evicted following shady deals between officials and developers.

Land grab cases are a highly sensitive social issue in China and have in recent months led to violent protests.

Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Co-President of the Greens/EFA Group in the European Parliament and Sylvain Garel, Co-President of the Greens in the Council of Paris have written to Nicolas Sarkozy.

They ask him to reiterate his request, as President of the European Council, to Chinese authorities to release Hu Jia and to give a passport to his wife Zeng Jinyan, so that they can receive together the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize, in the name of all the silenced voices of China and Tibet, in Strasbourg next December.

In the letter, they add that Hu Jia was made honorary citizen of the City of Paris and that this visit would be the occasion for him to receive this prize as well.

For the past 20 years, the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize honours individuals or groups that fight against oppression, intolerance or injustice.

Read the letter here:

http://www.greens-efa.org/cms/pressreleases/dok/256/256129.sakharov_prize@en.htm 

The Global Network Initiative guidelines were drawn up by Internet companies and several human rights groups, investors and academics. They should act as a framework for companies operating in countries where freedom of speech is heavily restricted, like China.

For now, the guidelines call for an oversight body to review their implementation, but possible sanctions have not yet been decided. The idea is to get Internet companies to think about freedom of speech issues before they start dealing in countries that restrict it. Basically, when signing up to these guidelines, Internet companies publicly sign up to more corporate social responsibility.

The problem is that most of these companies are already operating in countries like China and have joint venture with Chinese partners, over which they have no control whatsoever.

The most important aspect of this new initiative is that is it public. Internet companies are publicly adhering to more corporate social responsibility and to being reviewed. Remember that in 2004, Yahoo! handed over user information to Chinese authorities that led to the imprisonment of journalist Shi Tao, sentenced to 10 years. So, is this just a feel good initiative? It remains to be seen. Of course, proper implementation remains to be verified, but this is a step in the right direction. As Rebecca MacKinnon, a professor at Hong Kong University says, “what they (Internet companies) do to users in one country can impact how they’re seen globally.” 

Smile, you’re on camera

Then again, you can set up all the guidelines you want, censorship ultimately depends on local authorities on the ground. Two week ago, Chinese authorities announced new rules for Internet cafés. All cafés will have to photograph every visitor and scan their identity cards. These measures should be in place in the estimated 1500 internet cafés in Beijing by the end of the year. And this was announced on the day Chinese authorities decided to make permanent the Olympics-related foreign reporters rules.