Asia-Pacific Features
China rights push focuses on jailed AIDS activist
Apr 3, 2008, 14:01 GMT
Beijing - His name is known to US President George W Bush, and no doubt to Chinese President Hu Jintao, yet just a few years ago China's most prominent dissident was a largely unknown activist for the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS.
The jailing of 34-year-old Hu Jia for three-and-a-half years on subversion charges drew an immediate response from the US embassy on Thursday and was raised by journalists with the Chinese foreign ministry and the International Olympic Committee.
US embassy spokeswoman Susan Stevenson said Hu had 'consistently worked within China's legal system to protect the rights of its citizens'.
His activism 'should be applauded, not suppressed or punished', Stevenson said.
A few petitioners who said Hu had helped them to press their grievances were among more than 200 journalists, supporters and police gathered outside the closed court to hear the verdict from Hu's lawyer, Li Fangping, on Thursday.
The court said Hu was convicted of 'an attempt to subvert the state's political and socialist systems' through two online articles critcizing political positions of the ruling Communist Party.
He was tried on March 18 in a hearing that US-based Human Rights in China called a 'sham' and 'part of an ongoing pattern of politicized prosecutions'.
Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the European Union have all urged China to release Hu.
He was detained December 27 but had spent most of the previous two years under house arrest or other forms of detention.
Hu's activism began in the late 1990s when the economics graduate volunteered to work on environmental projects. In 2001, he began helping villagers infected with HIV/AIDS through blood-selling schemes in the central province of Henan.
His continued advocacy for the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS in China brought him international attention and several awards.
He gradually became much more than a grassroots rights activist, compiling information on rights abuses nationwide, and publishing online essays about democracy in China.
During his house arrest, Hu used his enforced isolation to act as a bridge between foreign media and the growing number of rights activists across the country.
He collected information daily on rights cases and other issues in China via the internet and telephone. This work helped to earn Hu and his wife, fellow activist Zeng Jinyan, a special prize in November from the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders.
'Holed up at home, the two activists nevertheless continue to do their best to keep the entire world up to date with damaging effects on the Chinese people of the preparations for the Olympic Games,' Reporters Without Borders said.
Hu and Zeng also testified by telephone to a European Parliamentary hearing on China's human rights record in November.
'I hope the Olympics can lead to more freedom,' Hu told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa shortly before his arrest in December, adding that he was not optimistic that major changes would happen before the games.
'We can already see from the 17th congress what they will do during the Olympics,' he said, referring to the round-up of hundreds of dissidents, rights activists and petitioners before the congress of China's ruling Communist Party in October.
Hu and Zeng also released a short documentary last year about police surveillance of them since early 2006.
'A week after our wedding party, Hu Jia was put under house arrest by the State Security police and after a month he disappeared... and there was no news for 41 days,' Zeng said at the start of the 30- minute film, 'Prisoners of Freedom City.'
The title of the documentary reflected the couple's restricted life in a modern, low-rise estate known as BOBO Freedom City, a location chosen by the couple partly because of the irony of its name.
Hu said he was seized by state security police from the party's Central Political and Judiciary Committee and taken to a secret site, where he was detained for 41 days in February and March 2006.
'They tied my hands behind my back, pushed me to the floor (of their car) and put a black bag over my head,' he said. 'It was just like a kidnapping by the mafia.'
The intimidation did not stop Hu and lawyer Teng Biao jointly issuing an open letter to the international community last September.
'When you come to the Olympic Games in Beijing, you will see skyscrapers, spacious streets, modern stadiums and enthusiastic people,' Hu and Teng said.
'You will see the truth, but not the whole truth, just as you see only the tip of an iceberg,' they said.
'You may not know that the flowers, smiles, harmony and prosperity are built on a base of grievances, tears, imprisonment, torture and blood.'
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Older Talkback
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SP4, If you don't google, what search engine do you use?
In old days, we had excite ..... Do they still exist?
Zhao Ziyang and Hu Yaobang were Chinese Communist party leaders who wanted freedom for all citizens of China-including the Tibetans, and the people who demonstrated in Tianenmen Square and who were killed or jailed for it. They were kicked out of their leadership roles by the hardliners, kept incommunicado, and placed under house arrest for the remainder of their lives. To the list of those unjustly jailed by the Chinese government we must now add Hu Jia, prominent Chinese human rights activist, who has just been sentenced to 3 1/2 years for advocating freedom, equality under the law, human rights, and protecting the environment.
The Olympic torch was lit recently in China, but it isn't the torch the Chinese people wanted. Their torch was held aloft by their statue of the Goddess of Liberty, the one that they built. That torch was torn down, and the people were attacked and killed or jailed by the 'People's' army in Tiananmen square in 1989.
Young adults in China today know nothing of this, because the Chinese government propaganda machine has vilified the hundred thousand patriots who demonstrated for freedom that day, and dismissed them as a few anti-social hooligans. This process is, of course, taking place today in China, only it is currently directed against the Tibetan demonstrators and the Dalai Lama. If the Tiananmen Square demonstrators had been successful in reforming the Chinese government, I doubt if there would have been the demonstrations in Tibet, because the people of Tibet would probably have had far fewer grievances.
You can see a photo of the 'Goddess of Liberty' and read about the Tiananmen Square massacre on Wikipedia- just Google: Wikipedia Tiananmen Square Massacre
Now the Chinese government, run by the very same people who conducted the Tiananmen Square Massacre and then lied about it, asks us to believe that the pacifistic Buddhist monks of Tibet are preparing to become suicide bombers.
I see that Hu Jintao has been swotting up on Mein Kampf by Adolph Hitler, with particular attention to 'The Big Lie.' Read all about it by Googling: Wikipedia the big lie .
We can protest these injustices by doing as Ms. Pelosi suggested, and boycotting the opening ceremonies. We can boycott Olympic sponsors such as McDonalds and Coca Cola. My own idea is ask the Olympic athletes, if they can find the courage, to wear black armbands to the Olympics, and have them explain to reporters that they were in mourning for the Tibetan people.
It is wrong for Chinese government to impose their culture and values on other countries.
Likewise it is wrong for Americans and Europeans to impose their culture and values on China.
Chinese culture, steeped in Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism devotes itself to the family and the state. When individuals express themselves against the family or state they are basically in an act of defiance against the good for the whole. Hence these criminals are labeled after many warnings to desist from promoting disharmony in China. When they did not listen to reason the Chinese way in punishment by the state.
Buddhism is a venerable spiritual religion. There is no room for it in politics. Tibetan Buddhism has long lost it's adherence to Buddha's principles of selflessness and harmony and peace. The Dalai Lama and his followers are far from pacifism and instead promote violence and disruption of the natural order in order to gain power for themselves. This goes against everything the Buddha taught. So let us just call them what they are , selfish power mongering egotistical greedy and unenlightened men that are anxious to a return of a despotic serfdom that Tibet was hundreds and more years ago.
Wow, I must have missed the hundreds of power hunger Tibetans that rolled in with their tanks and machine guns blazing to supress the helpless Chinese citizens that where relocated to Tibet under the Chinese governments policy to de-loot the native people.
I only saw the Chinese response, similar to Tiananmen Square if there is a disturbance in the population then kill them and they will not disturb again.
On October 7, 1950 China rolled into Tibate and took control in May 1951. The native people don't want them there. go figure. Just like the Iraqi population don't want the US there, but if the US just mows down the population I guess the rest of the world would stop buying its plastic, coal fired, lead painted, loaded with poison worthless junk.
Grow up China, and admit what you are, stop pretending what your not and the rest of the world will respect you for it.
'You may not know that the flowers, smiles, harmony and prosperity are built on a base of grievances, tears, imprisonment, torture and blood.'
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And you obviously do not know that without grievances, tears, imprisonment, torture and blood that my every day low prices would be as impossible as your flowers, skyscrapers, and prosperity.
Its a two-way street that you do not understand. You only see half, at most, of what is going on.
Jeopardize my hundred-dollar hdef-dvd player will you?!
Rot in jail, traitor!!
In the 1950's the Dalai Lama was recognized as a provincial governor of the Chinese Tibetan province.
Unsatisfied with that leadership role in the Chinese government the Dalai Lama and his followers cozied up to the United States and were trained in terrorist warfare (explosives, intelligence and communication gathering, promoting civil unrest and murdering of innocent civilians) by the CIA in Samoa and Colorado. These terrorist forces of the Dalai Lama were air dropped in and started a campaign for Tibet to secede from China and become an independent nation. Hoping to bring back the days of slavery and despotic serfdom rule that had existed in previous Dalai Lama Tibetan autocracy governments that at the time were being abolished by the central government of China that believed against a ruling autocratic class.
Well the Americans soon saw that the Tibetans no matter how much training and weapons would not win the war. China brought in their own troops and chased these terrorists out of China to India with the blessing the the CIA sponsors. And that is where these terrorists have holed up since then.
Always wanting to get back with continued support of the CIA the Dalai Lama and his regime has been stockpiling weapons and planning revolt in this Chinese province for years. Thinking that disrupting the Olympics as a means of gaining international support they launched a new uprising murdering innocent civilians, looting and burning stores, and attacking government offices and unarmed police officers. The chinese people abhor such chaos and violence and are aghast that the Chinese government allowed such terrorist activities to go unpunished. But the Chinese government was trying to appease the international community. That has now come to an end and these criminals are being rounded up and put in jail for trial.
And when the Chinese government finally, reluctantly brought in armed military police. They did not come with machine guns and tanks blazing. To do so would kill innocent lives. To claim so is a huge distortion that the Dalai Lama terrorists want the world to believe and there is no truth in it. To date of the people killed they are innocent civilians by Tibeten's or Tibetans committing suicide to avoid arrest.
The Chinese Communist Party, the only political party allowed in China, and the absolute ruler of that country, has done its best to eliminate Buddhism, Confucianism, and Taoism, and the latest arrival, Christianity. China makes a mockery of religion, by appointing government clerics instead of allowing religious organizations to appoint their own. There is no freedom of any kind in China, and free speech is punished with jail sentences. Over 700 people have been jailed in China in the last year, simply for speaking their consciences. I am beginning to think that the only way to force the government of China to respect religious freedom, human rights, and allow free speech is to organize a boycott of Chinese goods until democracy and free speech is allowed in China.
'We can protest these injustices by doing as Ms. Pelosi suggested...'
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hahaha!!
Ms. 'its not an airplane, its a ride' Pelosi?
The Chinese leadership knows that the Westerners will forget all about these things within a few days, and go back to what they do best: watching American Idol, discussing Britney Spears, and selling out their country to sovereign wealth funds.
See you at a packed wal-mart.
The CPC is by far the largest political party in the world with 70 million members.
China has eight other political party not affiliated with the communist part and other ethnic parties that are a minority in their democratically elected national congress.
As well China is officially an atheist nation.
There is no political allegiance to any religion.
Maoist revolution brought on by the Christian missionaries seizing cultural structures and forcing their ideals upon the Chinese and western nations military subjugation of the Chinese with a forced consumption of opium by these western military powers and the seizure of Chinese territories and cultural artifacts by these western nations and Japan ensured this.
That is why Falun Gong, Tibetan terrorists claiming Buddhism, and other religious affiliations that try to become a political force are thereby reminded that there is no official religion in China and if they continue political activities with their religious activities they will be banned and be dealt with by the government of China.
I think bUSh can't say much about how China deals with their own citizens because bUSh himself jailed non US citizens in Guantanamo. Tibet to China is Iraq to US, etc.
China, US are all superpowers, they're always right in their own way.
SP4 you needed a break a long time ago. You just went too far. bill clinton will go down as the one who never took a stand on anything at all. You wanna be him or what. You're gettin on my nerves. cool it.
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SP4: Time to Boycott the OlympicsApr 3rd, 2008 - 14:19:08
Where is the activist right-the-wrongs liberals? Time to stand for something. Here's your chance to give it to the multinationals, like Coke and Google!
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