Europe calls for release of Chinese dissedent

Updated October 24, 2008 12:36:09

The United States and European nations have called for China to free Chinese dissident Hu Jia from prison, after the European parliament awarded him a human rights prize.

The Sakharov prize for human rights was awarded on the eve of a major Europe-Asia summit in Beijing. Past winners of the Sakharov prize include Nelson Mandela, Aung San Suu Kyi and former UN secretary general Kofi Annan. The European parliament has called Hu Jia a "symbol of China's human rights problems."

Presenter: Sen Lam
Speaker: Minky Worden of Human Rights Watch, speaking from New York. Minky Worden is also the editor of a new book on human rights in China, called 'China's Great Leap'

WORDEN: Hu Jia is a symbol in a way of a new class of civil society that's developed in China over the last decade, and it's a very exciting development. These are individuals, they work on environmental issues, human rights issues, internet-related issues, health and HIV/AIDS. Their numbers are growing and it's very interesting, because their basis for pressing for change is the Chinese Constitution and they look and see what their rights are and they say, okay, we have this right to free expression, so I'm entitled to speak up about my views. And it's a very interesting new development in China just in the last decade.

Hu Jia himself was best known for working on health and human rights issues. He founded an HIV/AIDS group and he has been a tireless advocate on behalf of HIV/AIDS sufferers in China.

LAM: So do you think the awarding of the Sakharov prize is Europe's way of sending a strong message that it holds Hu Jia's work in great esteem?

WORDEN: I think the Chinese Government made a number of promises in order to get the 2008 Beijing Olympics and they were very specific promises. First, to guarantee "complete press freedom". That was not a promise that was honoured. And there were also a number of promises made by Chinese leaders of specific human rights improvements. The Olympics certainly caused a significant deterioration of human rights inside China over the last year. But one of the saddest things to see was the number of ordinary Chinese citizens who clearly took their own leaders at their word, that human rights would be improved. I think the European Parliament is trying to send a message that it's disappointed with the Chinese Government in not honouring its own voluntary promises to improve human rights.

LAM: Well Washington I understand has also weighed in with the State Department calling for Hu Jia's immediate release. Do you think the fact that this call was made on the eve of the Asia/Europe meeting, that that might lend some kind of weight to Washington's appeal?

WORDEN: I think there have been a number of appeals for Hu Jia's release. He was arrested in January of this year, sentenced in April, but before that he had been under house arrest for two years. So this is someone who has long been on the radar screen, not only of the United States, but of governments around the world. And his treatment is in some respects a test of how the Chinese Government handles peaceful critics and many governments have seen this as a test that China has failed.

I don't think that the US weighing in at this point will significantly change things, but I do think it was a very important thing that the European Parliament did to signal that there is a line which should not be crossed in relation to human rights.

LAM: And finally Minky, the State Department has also called for Beijing to release Beijing house church leader, Zhang Mingxuan. So I take it that there are many other dissidents still under detention in China that the world is concerned about?

WORDEN: Yes, actually Human Rights Watch on our web site has an entire section about human rights defenders in China, making the point about the general categories of people who end up in jail, under house arrest, or under police surveillance and there's Hu Jia of course, there's Gao Zhicheng there's one of Chinese foremost human rights lawyers, a number of human rights lawyers in prison, people working on property rights, womens' rights, religious freedom, press freedom, Tibetans rights, even land and housing rights and in many cases the most interesting thing to see is that these are clearly people who are basing their complaints or their concerns on China's own Constitution and they have tried very hard to work within the system, taking cases to court. Ultimately, they have been beaten up, harassed, surveilled, put under house arrest and many of them have eventually gone to prison just as Hu Jia did. So I think the pattern of treating China's human rights defenders not as people who are doing their best to improve the Chinese state, but of people who need to be silenced. That tactic has at least in this case certainly backfired.