Sakharov Network

In March 2002, several dozen Cubans were arrested, tried summarily without due process, and sentenced to long prison terms. The Human Rights Council and the United Nations have sufficient information on these arbitrary processes. More than fifty of those detained in March 2002 remain in over-crowded prisons together with common inmates, in inhumane conditions that have seriously damaged their health. They and other Cubans have been imprisoned for defending, promoting or peacefully exercising universally recognized Human Rights.

None of those convicted in April 2003 was charged with using or having weapons, inciting violence or disorder, espionage, or any other crime. They were convicted for expressing their opinion, exercising free journalism, and promoting civic initiatives. Among these initiatives is the Varela Project that, based on the existing Cuban Constitution, calls for a Referendum so that the Cuban people can express their opinions on necessary changes.

But since mere assertion should not to be confused with action, I urge you to read the official records of the summary trials. You can find many unsubstantiated allegations, insults and forced interpretations by the accusers, yet you will not find a single fact linking the defendants to the crimes that are described in the laws under which they were sentenced to very long prison sentences. The courts that condemned them were following orders from the government and were directed by State Security.

The Human Rights Council has the obligation to demand of the Government of Cuba the release of those imprisoned for fulfilling this entity’s mission: defending and promoting Human Rights.

Although this should have been its first demand, the Human Rights Council still has the opportunity to be consistent by approving the resolution, calling for the release of those peaceful political prisoners, that we present today after having already presented it to each member state of the Council.

A form of inequality has characterized Cuban society: the exclusion of people from opportunities, and from participation in political and cultural life, because of their political or religious beliefs. This official practice is buttressed by a systematic doctrine in public education, mass media, places of work, schools and in all institutions. This reality is illustrated in the qualification and classification of individuals as “revolutionaries” (i.e. unconditional supporters to the regime) or non-revolutionaries, who are referred to as worms in an attempt to strip them of their human condition.

Churches, fraternities and other groups suffer direct and systematic interference and intimidation from law enforcement bodies and the Department of Religious Affairs of the Central Committee of the Communist Party.  This department seeks to condition and regulate the churches’ social mission and tries to pressure bishops, pastors and leaders of these institutions, as well as lay ministers, priests and nuns. The more it is proclaimed that relations between the Cuban state and these institutions are good, the more conditioned and silenced they are.

There are institutional and active mechanisms in every block of every town, in every school and university, in every workplace and in all other areas of society to monitor people and evaluate their political and ideological behavior in order to recommend or enforce repressive or excluding actions, and to maintain an updated dossier of every citizen. This monitoring and control largely determines the life opportunities for individuals and their families, who often believe they have no choice than to follow along in order to survive in this culture of fear.

Unequal equality is found in the institutionalized system of corruption and privileges that grants to some leaders a rich life with enormous advantages in all areas, depending on their status and their membership or links to an entrenched group. This selective group of power lives as rich capitalists in a nation subject to the stricter, yet very selective, rules of savage communism.  This inequality can not be appealed by citizens and is at the core of the relationship between the group in power and the majority. This state of exclusion of the impoverished majority and of privileges for a small sector in power is sustained by a repressive system that acts systematically against all who criticize, question or try to change it. This oppression is supplemented by overwhelming propaganda and a doctrine that labels as “treason” anything that confronts this untouchable power.

After May 10, 2002, when more than 11,000 Cuban citizens submitted a petition for the Varela Project referendum (www.oswaldopaya.org), the National Assembly, in an unconstitutional move, amended the Constitution to state that Cuba’s social, political and economic system is irrevocable, thus denying the people’s right to sovereignty that is itself enshrined in the Constitution.

The lack of independent courts that fully comply with the law leaves citizens in a state of helplessness in the face of arbitrary abuse by authorities and law enforcement bodies. There is no concept of, or guarantees for, fundamental rights because citizens have no effective way to sue the state or the government. The lie that the people are the state itself and, as such, they cannot make claims against themselves, is cruel and crippling. This traps the system in an order of non-rights.

This system of power, privileges, oppression, propaganda, and doctrine is incompatible with freedom and with exercising freedoms of expression, of association, and to choose one’s representatives and government. However, these are not the only rights denied to Cubans. Fifty years of totalitarianism has put in place a culture of fear in which almost everything is banned and there is only tolerance and permissiveness, but not true rule of law.

The educational system is free, supported by the contributions of the Cuban people, and has expanded throughout the country and to all sectors of society. Especially notable for their human dimension are the special schools for children and young people with special needs.  The system lately has suffered from deterioration in the quality of its education and its effect on the development of values due to extreme politicization and a lack of incentives for teachers and workers. Education has also been a mechanism for domination, in which people are not educated for freedom but to be submissive to power figures as the only supreme value and as a reference from above on all moral issues.  The students, their parents and their teachers in all institutions of the educational system suffer oppression as a consequence of the lack of freedom of conscience, speech and association.

The public health system, both in theory and in practice, operates on the basis that all persons must be served by or benefit from its services and programs throughout the country based solely on need.  There is some favoritism and some dehumanizing behaviors that cause suffering or poor care.  The official propaganda sometimes uses the free nature of healthcare to justify the denial of many fundamental rights.  But the right to healthcare, and the healthcare system in Cuba, are generally designed and operated with a high level of humanitarian and social justice.

It is fair and necessary that the United States immediately lift the embargo on Cuba without conditions because it is the Cuban people who suffer its effects and because it is not a factor for positive change; on the contrary, it is often used by the Cuban government to justify what is unjustifiable: the denial of basic rights to Cubans.

The U.N. General Assembly has demanded, by majority vote, the just repeal of the embargo.

The General Assembly of the United Nations and many other institutions, including the Human Rights Council, harm the people of Cuba by encouraging the stagnation or decline in the human rights situation with their silence regarding the imprisonment in Cuba of human rights advocates and their outrageous refusal to demand the Cuban government to respect the rights of its own citizens.

The Human Rights Council should call upon the Cuban government to publish the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the human rights instruments it recently signed, and to commit publicly, to its own people, to comply with these norms and to make the necessary legal changes to respect and ensure these rights.

Most citizens who have signed the Varela Project are often intimidated and repressed by State Security, which still represses activists by threatening them and has even, like professional criminals, illegally entered the homes of activists to steal lists with thousands of names of people who signed this petition. The paradox is that citizens make a legal request that is supported by the Constitution while the government violates the law.

Those who condition the lifting of the embargo on the improvement of Human Rights in Cuba fall into a contradiction because the embargo itself is a violation of the rights of Cubans, and a violation cannot be a means or a remedy to overcome other violations.

 

Nevertheless, those who condemn the embargo and, at the same time, silence the denial and violation of Human Rights in Cuba, or condition the respect of human rights on the lifting of the embargo, are only interested in confronting the U.S. and not defending the Cuban people. They fall into hypocrisy and contradiction because they justify the Cuban government in punishing its own people and trapping them in an order of no rights.  It is even more insulting that they justify the lack of Human Rights in Cuba on the basis of the people’s right to self determination—as if Cuban citizens had a voice, freedom and rights to self-determination.

Many of those who travel to Cuba refuse to speak with representatives of civic organizations and human rights that are independent from the government and have publicly expressed satisfaction with the situation in our country without mentioning the lack of many rights in Cuba. Thus, they do not only join the Cuban government in its exclusionary practices, but also encourage the denial of Human Rights in Cuba and sow confusion and disappointment in our people.

Among these visitors are intellectuals; personalities from the world of culture; leaders and other personalities from Latin America, the United States, Canada, the European Union and other countries, including persons allegedly promoting Human Rights; and representatives of the United Nations.

It is common for the police to stop and search any citizen or vehicle on the road for no reason, without explanation nor the right to appeal. In this sense, Cuba lives in an undeclared state of siege.  The Cuban government has and continues to punish, with the exiling sentence of “Final Exit” (“Salida Definitiva”), hundreds of thousands of Cubans who decide to leave the country in search of freedom and opportunities that do not exist in Cuba. These Cubans cannot return to live in Cuba, nor does the government recognize their rights as citizens.  They can only return to Cuba if the government gives them permission for one, two or three weeks at most, and then they have to leave.

Cubans can leave the country on a temporary basis or under a “final exit” with government permission, which is often denied without any explanation. For Cubans who leave under the “Final Exit” category, the government confiscates all their property, including the dishes and silverware with which they ate. Leaving and entering the country is not a right in Cuba. Many families are separated due to the punishment government imposes on the family that is left in Cuba. When one of the family members departs with a temporary permit and decides not to return, he or she is labeled a “deserter”.

The right of association does not exist in practice, and the law that governs it is a set of impediments and constraints that prevents people from gathering according to their ideas or legitimate interests. Freedom to form unions is denied, and there is only one union completely dominated and controlled by the government and the communist party. The same occurs with student organizations. These organizations that supposedly defend workers and students are actually mechanisms to transmit government domination, control and, in many cases, repression.

The law prevents free elections. Did you know that Cuba’s electoral law stipulates that candidates for deputy may only be nominated by committees formed by organizations controlled by the Communist Party, and that there is only one candidate for each seat?

Although political freedom is stated in Article No. 1 of the Constitution, the Penal Code, other laws and the prevailing order completely deny this freedom at a personal and social level.

There are questions that can be asked and answered:

1. Can Cubans speak freely, even going as far as to criticize the government, without being labeled or subject to reprisals? No.

Can Cubans with opinions different to those of the government express themselves through media outlets that are financed by the people’s money? No.

2. Is there a right to establish and sustain independent publications and broadcasters independent from the government? No.
3. Can workers freely form unions? No.
4. Can students, professionals, religious people, and citizens with different ideas or interests organize legally and freely? No.
5. Are there independent NGOs that the government does not persecute? No.
6. Can a Cuban or a group of Cubans establish a small, privately-owned enterprise? No.  Can a foreigner? Yes.
7. Are there any political parties besides the Communist Party that are not persecuted? No.
8. Can non-Communist Cubans legally organize in political parties? No.
9. Can Cubans leave or enter Cuba legally and freely? No.
10. Can Cubans choose their deputies and their government democratically, from among several candidates, in a framework of democracy and pluralism? No.
11. In the last 60 years, have Cubans been able to democratically elect their government? No.
12. Do the Cuban people have the opportunity to exercise self-determination and freely decide on a Referendum, or endorse free elections on changes in the country or government, as has been done by the people of the United States and in many Latin American countries? No.
13.  Why?

  

Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas

Havana, March 3, 2009

 

Sakharov Prize winner Hu Jia completes a third of his jail sentenceHu Jia, the winner of the European Parliament’s 2008 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, complete today a third of his sentence of three and a half years in prison for “inciting subversion of state authority.”

 

 

The members of the Sakharov Network, which groups past winners of the Sakharov Prize, reiterate their support for their colleague, who is being unjustly held by the Chinese authorities. “We express our concern and sympathy for our Chinese friend, his wife Zeng Jinyan and their young daughter,” the network said. “We also express our solidarity with all political prisoners in China and their families.”

 

The Sakharov Network is worried about Hu’s precarious state of health and fears that he could be forced to work in a prison factory. He has just been examined by the authorities in the Beijing prison where he is held, and has been declared fit for work.

 

Hu’s wife and daughter were allowed to visit him in prison yesterday for the first time in three months. Hu seemed to have “aged” but was happy to see them, Zeng said. Guards stayed with them throughout the meeting and recorded their conversion. They were forbidden to discuss anything other than family matters.

 

“Our daughter was very well behaved during the visit,” Zeng has written in her widely-read blog (http://www.zengjinyan.org/). “She played with her father, who was able to take her in his arms. We are counting the days one by one.”

 

Zeng included passages from one of Hu’s letters in her blog entry: “In my old prison, there were four of us in a cell. Mice were the animals that kept us company. As 2008 was the year of the rat, chasing them away or hitting them was unthinkable (…) One of us was in charge of killing mosquitoes to feed the spider that guards the cell. In my new prison, the detainees also rear animals in order to keep going.”

 

The Sakharov Network reiterates its appeal to the Chinese government to release Hu without delay so that he can come to Europe to collect his prize and take it back to China.

 

 Message from Nurit Peled-Elhanan, Sakharov Prize 2001, shared with Izzat Ghazzawi

to Mr Hans Gert Pöttering, President of the European Parliament;

Luisa Morgantini, Vice President of the European Parliament;

and the Sakharov Prize winners

on the occasion of the

20th Anniversary of the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought

 

 

 

 

Dear President,

Dear Vice President,

Dear Sakharov Prize winners,

 

 

I apologize for not being able to attend such an important event.

 

These words are dedicated to the heroes of Gaza, the mothers and fathers and children, the teachers and doctors and nurses who are proving every day and every hour that no fortified wall can imprison the free spirit of humanity and no form of violence can subdue life.

 

The pogrom being carried out by the thugs of the Occupation army against the residents of the Gaza Strip is known to everyone and yet the world is impotent as always. I call upon all of us, who have won a privilege as well as duty by receiving the Sakharov prize, to arise and go to Gaza and any other city of oppression and slaughter; to defy all blockades and high walls and not to give up until all barriers are broken.

 

When Jewish poet Bialik wrote after the Pogrom against the Jews in Kishiniev,

"Satan has not yet created Vengeance for the blood of a small child,"

It did not occur to him that the child would be a Palestinian child from

Gaza and his slaughterers would be Jewish soldiers. And when he wrote:

 

Let the blood pierce

through the abyss!  Let the blood seep

down into the depths of darkness, and

eat away there, in the dark, and breach

all the rotting foundations of the earth.

 

He did not imagine that those foundations would be the foundations of the state of Israel. That the Jewish and Democratic State of Israel would demagogically use the expression "blood on his hands" to justify its refusal to release freedom fighters, children and peace leaders from the worst of prisons, while immersing all of us in the blood of innocent babes up to our necks, up to our nostrils, so that every breath we take sends red bubbles of blood into the air of the Holy Land.

 

But the siege of Gaza is only one of many sieges imposed today in the world by democratic powers as well as by non-democratic ones. All those sieges are meant for one purpose: to silence the voice of freedom and justice.

 

My co-laureate of the Sakharov Prize, Prof. Izzat Gazzawi, who died of humiliation less than two years after receiving this prestigious award, wrote to me just before his heart surrendered, that he believed the Israeli soldiers who came to his house every night to break furniture and frighten the children wanted to silence his voice. I have vowed then as I believe we  should all vow every day, to do everything within our power so that his and other such brave voices will not be silenced.

 

Today, when the most enlightened civilizations commit the most heinous crimes against innocent defenseless people out of greed, megalomania and pure racism we should listen once more to Bialik's cry from a hundred years ago:

 

"And I, my heart is dead, no longer is there prayer

on my lips;

All strength is gone, and

hope is no more.

Until when,

How much longer,

Until when?"

 

And then follow the example of people like Hu Jia, today's laureate of the Sakharov prize who is held in prison for dedicating every moment of his life to end the miseries of the family of man.

 

With my best regards,

 

 

Nurit Peled-Elhanan

15.12 2008

 

Video of Zeng Jinyan's message

 

Dailymotion : http://www.dailymotion.com/rsf_internet/video/13024651

 

YouTube (2 parties) :

- PART 1 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLBEfYPeOD8

- PART 2 : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWRgocnW320

 

Google Video : http://video.google.fr/videoplay?docid=-3960020963432694003

 

 

 

Dear friends, Hello,

 

I am Hu Jia’s wife, Zeng Jinyan. Hu Jia is currently in prison and so is unable to come to the ceremony to receive his Sakharov Prize.

 

I don’t have a passport so I cannot come to Europe either to attend the ceremony for the Sakharov Prize’s 20th anniversary. We are deeply sorry about this.

 

The good news is that Hu Jia was transferred on 10 October 2008 from Chaobai prison in Tianjin to the Beijing municipal prison, and that the conditions in which he is being held have improved. As for his health, he is looking a little better. He seems to be in slightly better shape than he was in Chaobai prison.

 

However, he had two blood tests in the space of a month  and we don’t know what the results were. Although we asked for them, the results of the tests have not been given to the family. This behaviour worries us. It makes us fear that his cirrhosis has got worse.

 

I visited Hu Jia in the Beijing municipal prison on 21 November 2008. Before our meeting, we were both warned separately by the prison authorities that we were forbidden to talk about the fact that he had been awarded the Sakharov Prize.

 

So, during my visit, neither of us was able to talk about the prize. We weren’t able to discuss it by letter either, as all our correspondence is inspected. Even if all we do is express a view about social phenomena or if Hu Jia talks about the prison, when the prison authorities are not happy with it, our letters are confiscated or Hu Jia’s letters are returned to him. We very much hope to be able to communicate more normally, but for the time being it is very hard.

 

At the end of October 2008 or beginning of November, I am not exactly sure which, State Security police officers told Hu Jia he had won the Sakharov Prize.

 

And when I saw him on 21 November, I could sense that he was very happy about it. I know that Hu Jia spoke to his mother and to the policemen about it. These are more or less his words:

 

 “Perhaps the European Parliament was thinking of the work I did in the areas of AIDS and the environment, because what I did in terms of human rights was very far from sufficient and I will need to redouble my efforts.”

 

He also said this Sakharov Prize was very important for China and he was confident that the future would prove him right. Obviously, from my personal viewpoint, I hope he comes home as soon as possible. Hu Jia said one day that he hoped to be China’s last prisoner of conscience but the reality is very different. Since the day of his trial, on 3 April, there have been others such as Huang Qi, Zeng Honglin and Chen Daojun who have been arrested by the authorities because their expressed their views publicly. And some of them have been tried and given prison sentences.

 

This shows that the situation of freedom of opinion is still absolutely appalling  and that there is no reason for optimism.

 

But even in these circumstances, 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.

 

If the truth be told, sometimes one’s courage is not enough. Sometimes the price to be paid is very, very high. There have been cases in which, after human rights activists, writers and others have used their freedom of thought, their relatives have also been harassed by the police, have lost their jobs or have been put under house arrest. And more serious still, some have even been tried and convicted.

 

Hu Jia had himself been illegally kidnapped several times by the police since 2004, without any form of legal procedure. He was constantly followed and in the end he was given a prison sentence. And I, who am his wife, I am often harassed by the police. 05:49

 

Others are in the same situation, such as Chen Guangchen and his wife, Guo Feixiong and his wife, and even their child, who has been denied his right to education. Thanks to many appeals from different quarters, Guo Feixiong's children were later able to go back to school although in circumstances that are not very satisfactory.

 

For all these reasons, I would like to respect the desire that Hu Jia has expressed on many occasions. He has often said he would like to set up a support network to help the families of human rights activists. To provide moral support for the families, to ease their mental and life pressure to which they are subjected. So that they can be strong enough to face the pressure of the authorities in a more active and optimistic manner, and to discourage cruel revenge-taking on families. 

 

I cannot at the moment do very much but I would like to use the 50,000 euros of Hu Jia’s Sakharov Prize as start-up money, to establish a foundation to support the families of human rights activists and to finally realise what Hu Jia had always wanted.

 

Why is the human rights work done by Hu Jia so difficult?

 

I think this is mainly because China’s legal system is not satisfactory. There are laws, there are all sorts of articles and regulations, some are well written, but they are not applied.

 

In reality, the situation of the rule of law is disastrous. The judicial system has no independence. Until 2004, Hu Jia devoted most of his activity to the problems of AIDS and the environment. He spent a lot of the time in the field, on campaigns, where people needed him to take concrete action.

 

Then, from 2004 onwards, the police regularly denied him his freedom of movement and he had no other choice but to participate in human rights movements from his home, writing articles and publishing reports from the field.

 

I think that during all these years, the most important and most interesting thing he did was to have constantly persisted in saying the truth. He never stopped writing about the phenomena he observed. He never stopped describing, one by one, all the realities that the Chinese media cannot say. He never stopped publishing all this on websites so that the public could learn about the reality of China and understand it.

 

In my view, this has been his greatest contribution.

 

If you look at China now, you see everyone talking, but lying is very widespread. Nonetheless, there are people who continue their quest for the truth. Because the school textbooks our children study, our newspapers and broadcast media, our libraries and all these documents and files, they all resemble what you find in the novel 1984. They are written in another language to describe a fictitious reality.

 

What is the real situation, the real China? We do not know.

 

That is why there is a group of thinking people, like Hu Jia, in China who have never abandoned their quest for the truth. But Hu Jia has paid a very heavy price.

 

Our child is now just one year old.  This is a key period in her life but Hu Jia is not able to be at her side. It is very difficult for me to talk about this, but I think… 

 

And then Hu Jia has also always been very optimistic. He said he thought China was experiencing the most open period of its history, that you had to seize the opportunity to more effectively promote a fairer, freer and more democratic society in China.

 

We can indeed see this in our daily life, although the government still has very tight control over the media and over freedom of association, and perhaps even tighter control with the use of new technology. But on the other hand, civil society also uses the new technology and the platform that the Internet provides to actively promote a fairer judicial system and a more just society, and to investigate and expose the real China.

 

And to carry out citizen education, to educate citizens about human rights. It is a real hope: whether the government wants it or not, and whether leading figures inside or outside China recognise it or not, China is moving at great speed towards an open and democratic society.

I would finally like to say that, whatever happens, we must maintain an active and optimist attitude and pursue our efforts to promote the rule of law in China, to promote democracy and freedom in China. 

 

We are 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.

 

I would like to thank our European Parliament friends from the bottom of my heart. The European Parliament has from the outset taken an interest in Hu Jia’s case and has deployed considerable efforts on behalf of freedom for Hu Jia and other Chinese human rights activists, efforts that demand respect.

 

It has also never stopped drawing attention to the need for freedom to become a reality for the people of China. Thank you, thank you very much.

 

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank all those friends who I have never seen. If you had not supported us for so long, if you had not taken an interest in our fate, if you had not constantly encouraged us, I think we would never have found the courage to confront such a difficult social reality.

 

 It helps us to keep hope and to continue our efforts. 

 

I thank you. Thank you for all the efforts you have undertaken for Hu Jia, for me and for our family. Thank you for your efforts on behalf of human rights activists and you contribution to the progress of Chinese society.

 

Thank you.

 

Thank you, thank you. And goodbye.

 

Zeng Jinyan

December, 17  2008

 

 

 
The following video describes in pictures and words  the shocking
details of Israel's deliberate ravaging of Palestinian life and society

in Gaza. Its purpose is to call attention to the plight of a people under

siege, which so far has been chillingly ignored by governments and

the world media unwilling to call Israel to account for its criminal

execution of the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians from their own

land.
 
The video was created by Sonja Karkar for  Australians for Palestine on
9 December 2008 using images captured by  various courageous
photographers on the ground in Gaza, and the haunting sounds of Sada
(Echo), composed and played on the oud by Ahmad Al-Khatib.
 
Click here http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=DSzn7XLLM7c

 

Once again, the Cuban government has violated my right to leave and return to Cuba . I was invited, along with my wife Ofelia, by the President of the European Parliament Mr. Hans-Gert Pöttering to participate in the commemoration of the 20^th Anniversary of the Sakharov Prize from December 16-17 in Strasbourg , France .

 

All of the documents, including Cuban passports, visas and others required by government regulations to authorize the visit, as well as the flight reservations, were arranged as stipulated by the Cuban government.

 

Again, the Cuban government has not wanted to accept the invitation or to grant us the “Carte Blanche” (exit permit), through which they control citizens’ right to travel outside of Cuba . Last year, on December 20^th, we presented the People’s Assembly with a petition from the citizens, called the LAW OF NATIONAL REUNION, in which we demanded, and now we reiterate, the right for Cubans to travel freely (more information on www.oswaldopaya.org).  

 

As your servant, I, along with my wife Ofelia, thank the members of the European Parliament for this invitation in deference to the prize awarded to me and which we accepted in the name of the Cuban people in 2002. We regret not being able to accompany you on such a special occasion.

 

We also wanted to congratulate my fellow activist Hu Jia, winner of the Sakharov Prize 2008, and to manifest our solidarity with other laureates, such as Aung San Suu Kyi and my compatriots the Ladies in White, who are also prohibited from travel. If the European Union and its Member Governments, led by the Spanish government, continue to reduce the demands for respect for human rights in Cuba and, under the cover of  dialogue, continue to distance themselves from those who defend human rights, this will only serve to cover up and justify successive violations of the rights of the Cuban people. Violations which have increased in the past few months with a fierce persecution against Varela Project activists, other members of the opposition, and the ongoing scandal of not freeing the  prisoners of conscience.

 

MAY ALL OF THE SAKHAROV LAUREATES WORK TOWARDS FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE AND TOWARDS RESPECT FOR HUMAN RIGHTS AROUND THE WORLD.

 

Oswaldo J. Paya Sardinas

Sakharov Prize Winner 2002

Havana . December 13, 2008

 

This blog has been created and designed by students of the second year of undergraduate studies in public relations at the Haute Ecole Libre of Brussels – Ilya Prigogine

The Haute Ecole Libre of Brussels, Ilya Prigogine, is an establishment of secular education recognized by the French community of Belgium. The spirit of tolerance is of utmost importance and everyone at the school acts as a responsible citizen in a pluralist society.

With this spirit, the practical studies of public relations focus on civil society. This activity joins two goals of these studies: the defense of freedom of opinion and expression, on the one hand, and the development of communication techniques on the other. The students use their skills for cultural, social, and humanitarian projects. “Prilya Communication” is a service and communication agency at the heart of the Haute Ecole.

A group of students, following these traditions, created for Reporter Without Borders a communication platform for the Sakharov Prize laureates. We created this blog to contribute to the fight for the freedom of opinion and expression.

Born on 25 July 1973, Beijing is an activist of Chinese origin modest, also known under the pseudonym of Freeborn. He graduated in economics and advocates for civil rights, environmental protection and defense of AIDS patients, militant His work is both politically and socially.

 

He began to campaign in 1996 as an ecologist. Starting from 2001, he began dealing with AIDS and orphans in particular from Henan Province, a region of China where poor farmers have been victims of blood contamination on a large scale in transfusion centers. Hu Jia is trying to disseminate information on what is really happening in Henan with the Chinese public and media. With other volunteers, they make the prevention, care for orphans and accompany people within terminally fase. Hu Jia said that the fight against AIDS is a priority because it is dramatic, both in non-compliance rights of people infected in the risk of spread.

 

He was also coordinator of the movement of "barefoot lawyers", which he is still party. It also fighting for revising the verdict on the massacre of Tian An Men Square on 4 June 1989. Hu Jia symbolizes a new generation of protesters in China. He always fought for human rights in his country and was visited by police on numerous occasions. But on 03 April 2008 was the first time he being arrested and his rights not respected. he also recognizes that there are progress, for example, at a working meeting on AIDS last April in Beijing, the government has publicly stated that China was in need of civilian organizations, whether local or international .

 

Distinctions

05 December 2007 while under house arrest, he received with his wife Zeng Jinyan a special award from Reporters Without Borders-Fondation of France, to continue to inform the world of consequences for the population of Chinese preparations OJ.

 

His nomination to the next Nobel Prize in 2008 for peace has been considered. Following the possibility of this nomination, the spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of China, treated Hu Jia of "criminal" and said that Beijing would be outraged by his nomination.

On 21 April 2008 on a proposal from the Greens, the Council of Paris has made Hu Jia a "Honorary Citizen" of the city, the same day as the 14th Dalai Lama.

On Thursday, 23 October 2008: the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought was awarded in spite of pressure from Beijing MEPs. Many personalities, organizations and countries around the world have welcomed the award of this prize to Hu Jia.

 

Until this date the detention of Hu Jia has been condemned by the UN, Britain and the United States. According to a source who met Hu Jia in detention, his health is deteriorating.