Sakharov Network

 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.

Salih Mahmoud Mohamed Osman is a prominent human rights actvist who for 20 years has defended victims of the ongoing civil war in his native country of Sudan.

"In a country governed by the rule of the gun, Salih believes in the rule of law” according to human Rights watch”. “He is a thorn in the side of those who use violence to cling to power. And for so many of his fellow Darfurians ,Salih is a lifeline, in a society that in recent years has had little cause to hope “

Salih Mahmoud Mohamed Osman, born 1957 in Tibbon Gabel Marra in Darfur graduated from the faculty of law in Khartoum in 1980.
He is lawyer working with the Sudan Organisation against Torture (“SOAT”) to provide free legal representation to people who have been arbitrarily detained and tortured by the Sudanese government and whose only crime is that the oppose government and whose only crime is that they oppose government policies or share the same ethnicity as the rebel movements in Darfur.

“Despite the difficulties we are giving support to the victims, assuring them that they are not forgotten” says Mr Osman. Over two decades during Sudan’s various civil wars Mr Osman has risked his own life to provide legal and medical aid to the victims of the conflict.

Mr Osman fights court cases on behalf of those charged by the Sudanese government, and, and has been successful with SOAT in overturning or reducing sentences to death or amputation.

Mr Osman and SOAT have also been active in cataloguing crimes that have taken place – particularly in the Darfur region - and they are engaged in a campaign to have rape prosecuted as a war crime.

As violence in the Darfur region has worsened over the past few years, Mr Osman has worked to provide a record of the alleged war crimes in that region.
He visits those who are detained and initiates legal action against Human Rights violators. His interviews with witnesses and records of crimes have been turned over to the international Criminal Court (ICC) to assist the Court’s prosecutions. As a matter of fact, the ICC prosecuted crimes in Darfur in 2005 and issued and arrest warrant against alleged Sudanese perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Mr Osman’s fight against injustice in Sudan has come at a personal cost. Members of his own family have suffered as a result of action by the militias. Mr Osman himself was persecuted for his actions; detained several times, held incommunicado and tortured. In 2004 he was imprisoned by the Sudanese security forces for over seven months without any charge or trial. He was released only after the intervention of the international community and his own hunger strike.

Despite the greatest risk for him and his family, Mr Osman has continued after his release, his brave defence of basic civil, political, and human rights. Concerned by the possible widening of the Darfur conflict which seriously threatens stability and security in central Africa, he also travelled across Europe to call for international intervention in Darfur.
On 8 November 2005, he was awarded Human Rights Watch’s highest honour for his work in Sudan.

Mr Salih Osman is currently actively involved in the protection of over 2 million Sudanese who have been forced to abandon their homes.
In addition to achieving the return of these displaced people to their homes and their rehabilitation, Mr Osman works to secure the accountability of those responsible.

Since 2006, Mr Osman has served as an opposition member of the Sudanese Parliament.
His new role allows him to voice his convictions, and avoid the harassment by national security forces faced by the other human rights defenders in Sudan. In his role as member of the National assembly for the National Democratic Alliance, he works on legal reform and focuses on promoting the rule of law through the implementation of the provisions of the interim constitution. At the same time he continues to provide legal aid in Nyala and in Khartoum.

By awarding the prize Sakharov to Mr Salih Mahmoud Mohamed Osman, the European Parliament pays tribute to his efforts and his courage in coming to the aid of the people of Darfur who face such terrible violation of their most basic human rights.

Aliaksandr Milinkevich, born in 1947 in the city of Hrodna, is the leader of the democratic opposition in Belarus.

He was chosen to be the joint presidential candidate of the United Democratic Opposition in October 2005, collecting more than 100,000 supporting signatures, and he was able to keep the Belarusian opposition together to form a common front against Aliaksandr Lukashenka throughout the campaign for the presidential elections of 19March 2006. Aliaksandr Milinkevich called for a truly democratic future for Belarus and presented himself as a real alternative to the authoritarianism of Lukashenka.

His diplomatic approach to negotiation and cautious public appearances helped him to build firm international support for his struggle. The results of the elections were assessed by the European Union as neither free nor fair, and furthermore, subject to fraud. Mr Milinkevich officially received 6 % of the votes, but unofficial reports state that his popular support was much higher.

The human rights situation in Belarus has deteriorated since the elections of March 2006. The authorities have enacted a law criminalizing behaviour deemed critical to the state. The silencing and imprisonment of journalists, activists, and other critics found to be politically inconvenient by the current regime still continues.

In April 2006, Mr Milinkevich was himself imprisoned for 15 days, together with other opposition members, for taking part in an 'unsanctioned rally', a peaceful demonstration in Minsk, to mark the 20 the anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster.

Despite the oppression, Mr Milinkevich is committed to continuing his fight for democratic future in his country, and for the return of fundamental rights to the Belarusian people, despite an increasingly difficult political climate.

Reporters Without Borders - one of the three of Sakharov Prize laureates in 2005 - campaigns for press freedom around the world, defends and supports journalists and other media workers who are victims of persecution and censorship.

According to Reporters Without Borders, more than a third of the world’s population live in countries where they do not enjoy press freedom. As of 18 October 2007, 77 journalists have been killed worldwide while carrying out their work. Today ,around 130 journalists around the world are in prison and sometimes spend years in jail simply for doing their job. Reporters Without Borders has been fighting such practices for 20 years now.

Reporters Without Borders, kept on constant alert via its network of over 120 correspondents, rigorously condemns any attack on press freedom world-wide by keeping the media and public opinion informed through press releases and public - awareness campaigns. Not only does it highlight the moral arguments against restrictions of press freedom, censorship and persecution of the press but also offers practical assistance to journalists who work in war zones.

In January 2002, when it created the Damocles Network, Reporters Without Borders acquired a judicial arm. In order to ensure that murderers and journalists torturers are brought to trial, the Network provides victims with legal services and represents them in Court.

The organisation’s initiatives are being carried out on five continents through its national branches and regional offices, in close cooperation with local and regional press freedom organisations.

Reporters Without Borders’ trilingual website keeps a daily tally of attacks on press freedom worldwide and offers the opportunity of signing online petitions in support of imprisoned journalists. To circumvent censorship, it occasionally publishes articles which have been banned in their country of origin, hosts newspapers that have been closed down in their homeland and serves as a forum for journalists who have been 'silenced' by the authorities of their country.

On 10 December every year, the association awards the ‘Reporters Without Borders - Foundation of France Prize’ to journalists for their outstanding contribution to the cause of press freedom in their country .