China Digital Times

China news tagged with: Zeng Jinyan (26)

• Zeng Jinyan: Concerns for Health of Hu Jia in Beijing Prison

  

  Thanks to a translator who prefers to remain anonymous for providing the following:

  In her blog entry of April 25, Zeng Jinyan discusses how on April 22 she went with their one-year-old child to visit her husband, activist Hu Jia, at the prison where he is being held on the outskirts of Beijing.

  “After filling out some paperwork, I went to the waiting room. Hu Jia was already waiting. The police officer at his side changed. The electronic signboard on the wall said Hu Jia, window 4. We spoke by telephone at window 4. The sound wasn’t good and it was cut-off several times.

  The window was very dirty and made for a fuzzy affect as if there were many, many layers of glass. I could see Hu Jia, but I couldn’t see him completely clearly. He had gotten a lot thinner, his face looked a bit pointy. He said he hadn’t been able to eat, so he got thinner. I asked him why he didn’t eat eggs. He replied he gets one or two eggs a week. He doesn’t eat with the other prisoners, the prison gives him vegetarian food. He can’t eat well and sleeps poorly. I asked him about the results of his physical, he said he doesn’t know and the prison personnel don’t know either. They said they will have to wait for the results from the hospital. But this is normal, not getting the results within a week!

  I had to worry, thinking back to that first physical after he had disappeared for 41 days in 2006. The B sonogram showed signs of a hardening of the liver. Other test results can back within 4 - 5 days, showing everything was normal. That time I put too much confidence in the those test results that came back with some delay, thinking everything was fine. Who know that in April 2006, he gradually had less and less appetite, then couldn’t get out of bed. I thought he was too tired and sent him to the hospital for treatment, only to find out that he was in very serious condition and needed immediate medical treatment.

  Now it is April and we have been waiting for the medical exam results for two months and his antiviral medicines have already stopped for three months. Now he can’t eat and is suddenly getting thinner. Could there be some physical problem? I believe that the prison is monitoring our conversations more and more tightly. His letters home have been returned twice for rewriting. All the books I have given him, except for some examination preparation books, have been rejected. Has Hu Jia been protesting to the prison officials? There is no hot water in the prison, has he caught a cold again?

  There is so much to say, but I don’t know where to start. There are so many ears listening. It is hard to talk about family matters. The child went to see her father. The guards with Hu Jia this time weren’t as friendly as last time and she got scared. So she came back to me. We can’t go through that door but the innocent child sometimes go through to see her father.

  The phone suddenly cut off. They said the half hour was up. The police officer told Hu Jia to go back. I was full of regrets since I hadn’t really said anything and the child didn’t really have a chance to get close to her father. Talking like this is like not talking at all, better to let father and daughter play for half an hour.

  When I got back home, my mother-in-law asked me, he is getting so thin, what can we do?

  What can we do? What can we do?

  The next day, my mother-in-law called the Public Security Domestic Security Detachment (Guobao). I called the prison several times. The people in charge weren’t in, so we could only just keep on calling. Shouldn’t they have informed the person who had the physical and their family members long ago? Are they going to give Hu Jia his medicine? Should they not guarantee that they are going to promise to give Hu Jia nutritious food? Should they not guarantee freedom of communications for us? Should they be preventing his family members from sending him books and necessities for daily life? Shouldn’t the prison provide hot water as a basic humanitarian and health necessity?

  了 了园

  April 25, 2009 at 10:42 am · Filed under 杂谈
  北京的四月，才是真正的春天。一夜冷雨，竟叫无数野花喷发，干巴巴的枝条，居然几天就绿得茂盛起来。

  春是升发的季节。如果胡佳在身边，他定会如此说。

  4月22日，周三。像过节一般，早早起来，梳洗，给孩子穿上昨晚准备好的衣服，又脱下，怕午饭前弄脏了，带了一包的小衣服备用。对宝宝说：今天看爸 爸去！宝宝马上指墙上的照片，脸上笑眯眯。到了爷爷奶奶那儿，一说看爸爸，她就往墙上看，找照片。

  中午一点，上了京开高速，和婆婆聊天，不小心错过了高速出口——去北京市监狱好多趟，第一次出这样的错误很不应该。到六环交界处下了高速往回走。

  团河，清代是是皇族的行宫所在地，现在是北京市监狱所在地。

  办完手续走进监狱会见室，胡佳已经在里面等了。他身边的警员又换了一个。墙上电子屏幕显示：胡嘉，4号。我们在4号窗口通过电话交谈。电话音效不 好，几次中断。

  玻璃很脏，已经模糊，中空玻璃之间，似乎还有万重的迷雾，我能看见胡佳，却不能完全看清。他瘦了许多，短短一个月时间，脸似乎尖了。他说吃 不下东西，所以瘦了。我问能不能吃到鸡蛋，他说一个星期大概有一个或两个鸡蛋。他不和其他人一样吃饭，是监狱另给的素食。吃不下东西，睡觉也不好。我问他 知不知道3月份以来体检的结果，他不知道，我也不知道，问监狱的工作人员，也说不知道，说要等医院给了才知道。可是常规的情况，一周内就能得检查结果啊！

  我免不了又担心，2006年他失踪41天，回来第一次做体检，当天拿的B超结果怀疑他肝硬化，其他生化化验结果，隔了四五天才拿到，显示 一切正常。我们当时大意了，太过相信这些迟到的体检报告，以为一切平安。谁知06年的4月份，渐渐地胡佳不吃东西，后来竟不愿意起床，我以为他太过疲劳， 送到医院才知道病重需马上住院治疗。

  如今又是四月，两个月的检查结果我们都不知道，他的抗病毒药已经停用三个多月了，他突然吃不下东西，突然消瘦，会不会又是身体出了状况？ 监狱对我们的交流审查，我认为是越来越严，他的家信往往要几次退回重写，我给他带的书，除了考试教材，其他也都送不进去。胡佳是不是在监狱向他们抗议了？ 监狱没有热水洗澡，是不是他又感冒了？

  千言万语，不知从何说起，那么多耳朵在听，时事不让说，家事不便说，孩子淘气，一会儿走到门口去看父亲。这次她父亲身边的警员不如上次的那人和善， 她又恐惧，一会儿跑回我的身边。那道门，我们相互无法跨越，只有孩子，天真无邪，偶尔穿过，亲近她的父亲。

  突然电话断了，说是半个小时已经过去。警员催促胡佳回去。我心中万般懊悔，什么也没说，孩子也没有好好和父亲亲近，早知如此，不如不要说话了，让他 们父女俩好好玩半个小时。

  回家婆婆问我：他这么消瘦，怎么办呢？

  怎么办？怎么办？

  隔日，婆婆告诉我她给国保打电话了，我给监狱几次去电话，管事的人都不在，只有继续打电话，胡佳的体检报告，是不是早该告知家属和他本人？ 是不是要给胡佳用药治疗？是不是该保障胡佳的饮食营养？是不是该保障我们的通信自由？是不是不该限制家属给他送书、文具和一些基本的生活用品？监狱是不是 该从人道及基本的卫生保健考虑，提供热水洗澡？

  » Read more
  • May 9, 2009 8:54 PM

• Visits To Jailed China Activist Curbed After Award

  

  From AP:

  Chinese authorities have curbed visits to an imprisoned dissident who was awarded the European Parliament’s top human rights award, his wife said.

  Zeng Jinyan said she was told of the restriction during a telephone call Thursday from the Beijing Municipal Prison, where her husband, Hu Jia, is being held on a sedition charge.

  “State security police told the prison to cancel my visit that had been scheduled for next Monday,” Zeng said in an online posting. “No one is allowed to see him.”

  No reason was given for the change of plans, she said.

  » Read more
  • December 18, 2008 8:42 PM

• China Dissident Wins Rights Prize

  

  BBC reports on the awarding of the Sakharov Prize to Hu Jia and a video message from his wife, Zeng Jinyan, to the European Parliament:

  Ms Zeng told the parliament Mr Hu had hoped to be China’s last prisoner of conscience but said that more dissidents had been arrested since his detention.

  “The situation of freedom of opinion is still absolutely appalling and there is no reason for optimism,” she said.

  Ms Zeng said she had been forbidden by prison guards to discuss the prize when she last visited her husband.

  » Read more
  • December 17, 2008 12:49 PM

• China 2008: Human Rights

  

  This next installment in the CDT series on important issues facing China in 2008 concerns the state of human rights in China.  See also these previous China 2008 articles: China and the Developing World, Nationalism, Internet Culture, and Identity, Environmental Crisis, and The Global Financial Crisis and the Revaluation of the Yuan.
  

  The issue of human rights may be the oldest sore point between the People’s Republic of China and the developed democracies of the world - particularly the United States - as the former aspires to a place of prestige in the international system.  The Chinese government first garnered international outrage for its human rights record with the brutal suppression of the Tiananmen Square protests in 1989.  Since then, scrutiny has been focused on, among other issues, China’s treatment of its ethnic and religious minorities.  However, human rights as a category casts a broad net which also includes freedom of expression, due process, reproductive freedom, and labor rights.

  The hosting of the Olympic Games in Beijing made 2008 a very special year for human rights in China.  One of the hottest questions buzzing around the run-up to the Games was whether Chinese leaders would improve human rights, as per their promise when bidding to host the Olympics in 2001.  Since the closing ceremony, however, several events have surfaced in the media to indicate that old human rights violations are still plaguing the People’s Republic of China.  Below are several cases which have appeared on CDT, from the crackdown in Tibet to lesser-known episodes of religious and political oppression.

  Activism

  In 2008, the Chinese government set for China ambitious goals of social progress, such as democracy by 2020 and battling discrimination against sufferers of AIDS.  Activists continue to be excluded from efforts to meet those goals, as evidenced by the spate of confinements, arrests, and disappearances of democracy, AIDS, and other activists.  An activist campaigning for people with HIV and AIDS was detained and sent out of Beijing as the capital observed World AIDS Day.  The trial and sentencing of democracy activist Hu Jia and the house arrest of his activist wife Zeng Jinyan were perhaps the biggest stories in this vein in 2008.

  The Olympics

  To showcase China’s commitment to free speech, the Chinese government created special ‘protest zones‘ in parks around Beijing where people could apply to protest.  However, of the 77 protest applications filed - most involving property, health care, and labor disputes  74 were voluntarily withdrawn after being “properly addressed by the relevant authorities”, and none were approved.  Petitioners were often followed to Beijing by police from their hometown and forced to go back, or arrested and sentenced to hard labor.

  Black Jails

  Some Chinese citizens who traveled to Beijing for redress of grievances were not so lucky to be escorted back home.  Many petitioners were imprisoned in ‘black jails’ instead, illegal but state-run detention centers for petitioners scattered throughout the capital city.  Human rights groups have suspected the existence of these underground prisoners for some time, but hard evidence came to light in September when Beijing activists mounted rescue operations for petitioners being held in a black jail.  Charged with no crime and held indefinitely in poor conditions, those held in black jails have also been badly beaten.

  Labor

  The global credit crisis has exacerbated the plight of China’s laborers.  The recent wave of labor unrest stems from the chronic injustices of unpaid wages and unemployment benefits, and stolen pensions.  Many Chinese laborers are migrant workers whose legal inability to obtain a hukou, or local registration, consigns them to substandard living conditions and denies them social services such as education for their children.

  Legal Rights

  The right to sue continues to be denied to parents who lost children to melamine-tainted infant formula and to unsafe schools which collapsed in the Sichuan earthquake.  Chinese courts have thus far declined to hear all such cases, lawyers offering legal advice to bereaved families have been intimidated by the state, and parents are both threatened and bribed into silence.

  Police Brutality

  In November, police suppressed a violent riot in the city of Longnan, Gansu province over plans to demolish and move the city center.  Soon after, Chinese netizens reported that the violence had been triggered when police began to beat protesters.  They estimated that over a hundred had been arrested in connection with the riots, many injured and some fatally so.   One netizen also claimed that tens of protesters had been beaten to death.  These posts were soon censored.

  Tibet

  Thousands in Tibet were arrested in a security crackdown after violent riots against government policies broke out in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa on March 14.  Among them was Jigme, a Tibetan monk who while in hiding spoke to foreign media about his two months of abuse in government custody.  Jigme was re-arrested in November at his monastery in Labrang, where he had returned after police assured his family that he would be safe.

  Torture

  Accusations of torture in Chinese prisons have been leveled for years against the PRC.  In early November, Chinese officials appeared before U.N. Committee Against Torture to answer questions about the country’s alleged record of prisoner abuse.  However, while flatly denying allegations of torture, members of the China delegation side-stepped the Committee’s questions about whether or not the government disappeared and abused political dissidents.  After the review, the U.N. Torture Committee released a report which recommended that China “take immediate steps to prevent acts of torture”.  The Chinese government called the committee’s findings ’slanderous’ and ‘prejudiced’.

  Xinjiang

  Religious oppression continues against the largely Muslim Uighur ethnic minority in China’s far northwest province of Xinjiang. After attackers killed over 20 police officers and security guards in Xinjiang during the Olympic Games, Chinese authorities implemented a security crackdown which included religious restrictions on the region’s Muslims, such as preventing mass prayers and the ciriculation of religious material.  During the Muslim holy month of Ramadan in September, women were forced to unveil their faces in public, Uighur restaurants were forced to stay open during the day, and Muslims were discouraged from fasting.  Ethnic Uighur government officials were tested with offers of free lunches at work.

  Later in November, in a more draconian instance of China’s population control policy (also known as the one-child policy), a Uighur woman was held at a hospital in Xinjiang to undergo an abortion against her will, six months into her third pregnancy.  After an unsuccessful escape attempt, she was later released without the abortion due to international pressure on Chinese authorities.

  » Read more
  • December 10, 2008 12:42 AM

• Deutsche Welle Announces International Weblog Awards

  

  Deutsche Welle’s International Weblog Awards (The BOBs) have been announced. Generación Y, a Cuban blog written by Yoani Sanchez won the Jury Prize for Best Blog. Among many nominated Chinese blogs, Liu Xiaoyuan’s (刘晓原) blog won Best Blog Chinese, and zengjinyan.spaces.live.com, written by Zeng Jinyan, the wife of the jailed human rights activitist Hu Jia, claimed the Reporters Without Borders Award. The BOBs were also open to public online voting. Science Guru, a science blog written collaboratively by a group of Chinese authors, was the People’s Choice Winner of both Best Blog and Best Blog Chinese awards.

  

  Liu Xiaoyuan's blog

  Liu Xiaoyuan is a famous Beijing Lawyer who fights against injustice in the Chinese legal system. According to Rebbeca MacKinnon, Liu Xiaoyuan’s sohu blog got taken down soon after the award was announced. MacKinnon’s past conversation with Liu also inspired her to conduct a study on Chinese blog censorship.

  Censorship by Chinese Blog-hosting Companies

  View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: blogs chineseinternetresearch)

  EastSouthWestNorth translated Zeng Jinyan’s latest post, “Thanksgiving.”

  

  Please see the CDT tags, “Hu Jia” and “LIu Xiaoyuan”, for more relevant information.

  » Read more
  • December 1, 2008 6:41 AM

• Senior Party Official: Democracy in China by 2020

  

  Senior Chinese Communist Party official Zhou Tianyong’s prediction that “by 2020, China will basically finish its political and institutional reforms” appears to signal the Party’s willingness to reopen discussion about political reform.  From the Telegraph:

  [Zhou] added: “We have a 12-year plan to establish a democratic platform. There will be public democratic involvement at all government levels.”

  Mr Zhou also predicted “extensive public participation in policy-making, such as drawing up new legislation”.

  [...]Mr Zhou added that civil society in China would also play an important role. “There will be many more non-governmental organisations, chambers of commerce, industry associations and other social groups. Religion should also be given a wider platform to play a positive role. We should protect religious freedom,” he said.

  According to another Telegraph article, Zhou produced a report in February which warned that failure to enact political reforms could lead to social instability and economic stagnation:

  A plan produced by Mr Zhou in February, entitled “Storming the Fortress”, suggested that China could face social and economic instability if the Communist Party did not curb its power and acknowledge a desire for democracy. “Citizens’ steadily rising democratic consciousness and the grave corruption in the Party make it increasingly urgent to press ahead with demands for political system reform. The backwardness of the political system is affecting economic development,” wrote Mr Zhou.

  However, Zhou’s democratic vision does not seem to include popular sovereignty or an end to the Communist one-party state:

  Rana Mitter, a professor of the politics of Modern China at Oxford University, said: “[...]It also depends on how you define democracy. We all understand democracy as a multi-party system, but in China there has been a definition of democracy since Mao’s time as popular participation, but not necessarily with the right to change the government.”

  [...]Asked if the government actually had any intention of relinquishing power, Mr Zhou said: “Don’t underestimate how far the Party has come. The Party still has effective leadership and is committed to further reform.”

  This Xinhua report describes the spirit and purpose of the democratic reforms which Zhou advocates as closer to the Maoist mass line than to the Western notion of ‘democracy’.

  China will work diligently to maintain an effective and smooth communication channel with citizens who want to submit complaints, a senior Party official said here on Tuesday.

  In the past nine months, asked by the central government, senior officials of the city, county and district governments met with ordinary citizens in person regularly, listening to their requests and complaints and helping solve their problems. They also paid more frequent visits to grassroots people.

  “Their work eased serious problems that were closely related to people’s interests and threatened social stability,” Zhou said. “Their visits at grassroots levels contributed to the implementation and improvement of central government policies.

  Zhou’s statements come at a time when Chinese AIDS and democracy activist Hu Jia remains jailed and his wife Zeng Jinyan under practical house arrest.

  Read more about the debate on democracy in China here on CDT.

  » Read more
  • October 14, 2008 8:46 PM

• Chinese React to Nobel Award

  

  From RFA:

  Chinese civil rights activists organized an online campaign to support the nomination of jailed AIDS activist Hu Jia to receive this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, while others supported the official line warning the Oslo-based committee not to “hurt the feelings of the Chinese people.”

  While Beijing’s leaders will probably heave a sigh of relief following the announcement Friday that the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to former Finnish president and peace mediator Martti Ahtisaari, reaction online was more mixed.

  “Very disappointed,” one prominent blogger commented on the live update service Twitter.

  Another said, “I guess Hu Jia just wasn’t international enough.”

  “Jinyan,” commented a third. “We should still congratulate you. Not even [Chinese President] Hu, the leader of the biggest mafia gang in the world, has had the honor of a nomination bestowed upon him.”

  » Read more
  • October 11, 2008 10:37 PM

• China Dissident Zeng Says She Wants To Speak Out Despite Fear

  

  From AFP:

  Chinese dissident Zeng Jinyan said on Friday that she wanted to keep speaking out on human rights but was afraid due to intimidation of her and her jailed husband, who had been tipped for the Nobel Peace Prize.

  “I think that I will not give up on further efforts,” Zeng said in a rare interview after silently sneaking downstairs from her third floor flat in the Bobo Freedom Village in Beijing to speak to an AFP reporter.

  “But sometimes I hesitate,” she said. “I can’t make the decision because I am not completely sure about the risks I am facing.

  “Who knows what will happen?”

  » Read more
  • October 10, 2008 7:17 PM

• Zeng Jinyan: I Visited Hu Jia Today

  

  Zeng Jinyan writes her account of a recent visit with her husband, political prisoner Hu Jia, translated by the China Freedom Press blog:

  Yesterday morning I received a telephone call from the prison, notifying me that on Wednesday September 24 I could go to Tianjin City’s Chaobai Prison Hangu Qinghe Work Farm to visit my husband Hu Jia. Because the prison is so far away, and I have my baby and parents to take care of, and it was raining, and it would be dark when I returned and I feared it would be unsafe, I requested to switch the date to Thursday September 25. They agreed.

  The police had informed me that from now on my visits to see Hu Jia would be coordinated between me and the prison officials directly. As long as I informed the police, they would no longer play go-between or require accompanying me to the prison. Yesterday evening I picked up Hu Jia’s mother. This morning at 8:20 we left home, and arrived at the prison at 10:40. Then we waited there for the visit to be arranged. We heard the prison officials talking about Hu Jia and them making their arrangements. At 2:20 p.m. we left the prison and arrived back home at 5 p.m. Altogether we traveled 338 kilometers, and spent 160 yuan on highway tolls. The new highway makes the trip faster, but it is still very tiring for one person to drive the whole way.

  » Read more
  • September 26, 2008 8:49 PM

• 10 Foreign Protesters Detained in Beijing

  

  Ten more foreign protesters have been arrested in Beijing, and this time they have been given a ten-day administrative detention order. From the New York Times:

  Reached by telephone, Public Security Bureau officials declined to comment, but faxed a two-sentence statement explaining that the six Americans had been “apprehended for upsetting public order.” The statement, which did not include the detainees’ names, said the men were being held at the Dongcheng police station.

  According to Students for a Free Tibet, among those in custody were Brian Conley, a video blogger from Philadelphia, and James Powderly, an artist from New York who had been planning to project the words “Free Tibet” on a building with laser beams. The others are Jeff Goldin, Michael Liss, and Tom Grant, all from New York, and Jeffrey Rae from Philadelphia.

  The Students for a Free Tibet website has an update, saying that all ten protesters, including a Tibetan-German and a British citizen have also been sentenced to ten days detention. Those detained include video artist James Powderly of Graffiti Research Lab and video blogger Brian Conley of Alive in Baghdad. Watch a video clip about Powderly and their protest action in Beijing:

  And a video of the actual protest:

  » Read more
  • August 22, 2008 9:37 AM

• Chinese Rights Activist Zeng Jinyan Disappears

  

  From AP:

  A Chinese human rights activist whose husband was jailed earlier this year has disappeared and may have been taken by police to prevent her from speaking to journalists during the Beijing Olympics, an overseas-based human rights group said Friday.

  The group, Chinese Human Rights Defenders, said Zeng Jinyan disappeared on Thursday and has not been heard from. Zeng is married to activist Hu Jia, who was sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison in April.

  “All attempts to contact her have failed. It is feared that Zeng has been taken into police custody and might be mistreated,” the group said.

  “As the Olympics open in Beijing, it is believed that Zeng was taken away to ensure that no journalists will have access to her and that she will be unable to speak out about Hu Jia during the games,” it said in a statement.

  » Read more
  • August 9, 2008 6:10 PM

• Zeng Jinyan Asks For Harassment To Stop

  

  From Global Voices Advocacy:

  Zeng Jinyan wrote last week on her Twitter account that the heavy surveillance she and her daughter are under has been stepped up in recent days and now includes regular physical harassment.

  Zeng appears to continue to have some sort of internet access, but judging from a letter posted to her blog yesterday, this move by authorities comes as a sharp reversal to a prior slight relaxation of the conditions of her ongoing house arrest:

  Dear Mr. Policemen,

  The dozen or so of you are stationed in the courtyard. Your bikes parked, you wait for orders, through the blowing wind that chills you in winter, the bugs that bite you during the hot summer, and not a day off in the meantime. Aside from stopping people from visiting me, you even often block me from going out, or trail me when I go shopping, or take my baby to the hospital for shots, and it can be quite trying.

  » Read more
  • June 1, 2008 10:27 PM

• Please Tell Me: Is This a Just Verdict?

  

  Written by Zeng Jinyan, the wife of human rights activist Hu Jia, via Global Voices Advocacy:

  In a hearing on 3 April 2008, the court convicted Hu Jia (胡佳) and sentenced him to three years and six months imprisonment and subsequent deprivation of his political rights [1] for one year. They also confiscated his laptop computer, his wireless internet access card, his WiFi router, ZTE ADSL modem, an internet access card, one sheet of A4 printer paper with Cai Chu’s (蔡楚) e-mail address written on it, and his PHS limited-range mobile phone.

  After the verdict was announced, I had to struggle with the state security squad police just for the right to walk by myself. They dropped me off at the Babaoshan subway station exit. A group of friends, some of whom I recognised, came running up to meet me. Many of them asked me: ‘Is this a just verdict?’

  » Read more
  • April 14, 2008 1:21 AM

• Zeng Jinyan: Gratitude

  

  Beijing based blogger Zeng Jinyan (曾金燕), wife of imprisoned activist Hu Jia (胡佳) just updated her blog:

  My situation has improved somewhat. Although my computer and other valuables have not yet been returned to me, I have to find ways to get on the Internet, and learn of news I hadn’t heard before.

  I don’t know where to begin, returning to a discussion that’s been ruptured for several months. My heart is full of gratitude. I thank every friend who is paying attention to Hu Jia’s case; especially the young friend who waited 24 hours in the cold wind to bring powdered milk for my baby — I don’t even know his name, nor did I get a clear look at him, but since then, when I go into the kitchen, I’ve started a new habit of looking out the window, harboring a bit of hope, as well as a memory that is both brief and full. I thank the friend who got my website up, who in the critical moment where I lost contact, facing much pressure, spoke in place of me. Then there were those special friends who used a special method to support and encourage me, ensuing I did not end up in despair or lose all faith. The two words “thank you” are too weak and frail to fully express my feelings.

  Since the afternoon of December 27th, I have asked myself endlessly what to do. Hu Jia believed that nothing could possibly happen before the Olympics, because everyone wished for a peaceful, glorious Games, no matter the differences between calling it the “harmonious Olympics” or “human rights Olympics.” In the middle of the night, after feeding my baby or changing her diaper, I stare up at the ceiling, listening to the sound of a chair rocking upstairs, and imagine every possibility, asking myself in the end what am I to do to make Hu Jia come home sooner, without sacrificing the rights and dignity of being human. Oftentimes before I know it, it’s light out.

  In theory it’s very simple. Numerous statutes in the Chinese Constitution and international law ensure the protection of citizen’s rights as a simple and clear principle. But the brutal, irrational nature of the actual situation fills me with dread. Were it not for the support of friends and family, I might not have made it this far. Hu Jia has cirrhosis of the liver. He needs to eat well and get lots of rest, and cannot withstand vigorous physical activity. Yet during his first month in detention, he slept very little. He’s been interrogated in the middle of the night for anywhere between 6 and 14 hours, and has barely had a chance to get fresh air (only three times in the first 70 days, for less than a half-hour each time). On the tenth of February I said to Hu Jia: take care of yourself while you wait to be reunited with us. I said to the police: Even if you don’t beat him, if you use inhumane methods on him, it’s murder just the same. Please take good care of him. So long as he lives, any kind of suffering can be endured.

  The only consolation is that our child is doing well. At around three months, she showed symptoms of calcium deficiency—excessive sweating, misshapen skull, easily startled—but she’s better now. When Hu Jia saw his baby on March 18th, he was shocked at “how big she’s grown.” Our baby smiled at Hu, grabbing his left forefinger with her tiny hand, as he looked at her saying, “She smiled! She smiled!” That day, we had no chance to speak of anything else. As I look at his pallid, slightly jaundiced face, it felt like a knife was twisting in my heart. I had a series of nightmares that night, and couldn’t sleep. Every day I wait for his news. Sometimes when the employee from the shop who comes with rice knocks on the door, I get up from the couch thinking he’s come back. The lawyer says, according to standard procedure, there should be a decision by April 7th.

  Don’t call me.
  If there’s something, send an email.
  If you have a question, you can leave a message.
  Having experienced no freedom, I treasure limited freedom all the more.
  Unless the general situation improves, there is no way for us to truly escape our predicament.
  I sincerely hope that technological and economic advancement is used to promote human happiness, and not to bring about misery.

  10:11 PM March 29th, 2008

  » Read more
  • March 29, 2008 4:40 PM

• Visiting Zeng Jinyan: The Movie

  

  Time Magazine reporters Austin Ramzy and Simon Elegant tried to visit Zeng Jinyan, blogger and wife of imprisoned activist Hu Jia, who is herself under house arrest in Beijing with their three-month-old daughter. Ramzy and Elegant shot a video of their interaction with security guards at Zeng’s apartment building, who told them they couldn’t enter because it was a crime scene. Watch the video here. Elegant writes:

  Hu Jia, the activist about whom we have written often, stood trial in Beijing’s Intermediate Court No. 1 last week on subversion charges. His conviction and sentence (a not guilty judgment is about as likely as Steven Spielberg getting an engraved invitation to the Olympics Opening Ceremony) is expected any time now. About a week earlier, my colleague Austin Ramzy and I tried to visit his wife, Zeng Jinyan, who is under house arrest.

  » Read more
  • March 25, 2008 9:57 PM

CDT BOOKSHELF

FROM CHINESE CITIZEN BLOGGERS 公民博客:

Support CDT - Buy a Grass Mud Horse T-shirt!