EU honors Chinese activist Hu Jia for human rights work
BEIJING - In a move spotlighting China's poor human-rights record, the European Union yesterday gave a prestigious award to an outspoken, jailed Chinese activist.
The award of the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought to Hu Jia represents a challenge to the Communist regime's often heavy-handed approach to social control. It also comes shortly after the Olympics, held in Beijing, when China pledged to improve its human-rights record.
In a bit of lobbying that failed, China issued a warning to the European body Wednesday against honoring Hu.
"If the European Parliament should award this prize to Hu Jia, that would inevitably hurt the Chinese people once again and bring serious damage to China-EU relations," China's ambassador to the European Union, Song Zhe, said in a letter.
Hu, 35, was sentenced in April for "incitement to subvert state power," a broadly worded charge the Chinese government often uses against critics and dissidents. He has campaigned for political prisoners, criticized torture and aided those hurt by industrial pollution, repressive medical policies and violation of civil rights.
Hu was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison, a move some analysts saw as part of a larger bid to intimidate social activists in advance of the Olympics.
"This prize is very important, not just for him but for all in China's emerging civil society," said Sara Davis, executive director of New York-based Asia Catalyst, a human-rights group. "Hu Jia is someone the Chinese should be proud of, not ashamed of. He's made enormous contributions."
When Hu was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize this year, an honor that went to former Finnish president Martti Ahtisaari, China warned the Nobel committee not to make a "mistake."
The disagreement over the award was awkwardly timed, coming as representatives of the EU's 27 member states and 16 Asian nations gathered in Beijing for a biennial meeting that this year will focus on the global economic downturn.
China has insisted that outside pressure will not alter its views. It argues that maintaining political and economic stability and elevating hundreds of millions of people from poverty fit its definition of human rights. "No matter what happens, China will never give up its current policies," said Liu Wenzong, a standing director of the China Society for Human Rights Studies.
But activists said China is much more concerned about its international reputation than it admits, and that publicity about the award would increase pressure for reform.
"On the surface, China will probably be aggravated with this choice, and [Chinese] pundits will say this is not the way to change China," said Nicholas Bequelin, a Hong Kong-based researcher with Human Rights Watch. "But . . . this might actually prompt the government to seriously engage and mitigate its record."
Zeng Jinyan, Hu's wife, a fellow human-rights activist, recently challenged the government over her husband's declining health. He has cirrhosis of the liver linked to a chronic hepatitis B infection.
Hu gained prominence in 2000 when he established Loving Source, a nonprofit AIDS organization. He was detained in 2005 and again in February 2006, when he was held for more than a month and then placed under house arrest for nearly a year. In December, he was detained after working with peasants fighting land seizures. 