26/02/2009
Network of Sakharov laureates does not forget one of its own
Sakharov Prize winner Hu Jia completes a third of his jail sentence
Hu 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.
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04/12/2008
Who is Andreï Sakharov?
Born in Moscow in 1921, he grows up in a family where physics has already been introduced by his father Dmitri Ivanovitch Sakharov, author of several scientific works for the general public. In 1938 he enters the Faculty of Physics at the University of Moscow from which he graduates with honors in 1942. In the summer of 1943, he is sent to work as a carpenter in Kovrow. He discovers the hard life of the soviet peasants and workers in the countryside. In September 1943, he is sent to a munitions factory in the Volga where he works as an engineer until 1945.
He then starts his PhD in physics at the Lebedev Institute in the Department of Physics. He finishes his PhD dissertation and joins a research group whose task is to develop nuclear weapons. As of 1950 they are the pioneers in soviet research on directed thermonuclear reaction (thermonuclear reaction of the hydrogen isotopes for the production of electric energy or for the production of energy for nuclear reactors). In 1953 they create the soviet hydrogen bomb. Until 1962 this work will be used for the development and the creation of soviet future nuclear weapons. He also develops basic ideas and runs tests on the first magneto-cumulative explosive generator.
Andreï Sakharov is worried about the consequences of his work for the future of human kind, and tries to make people aware of the danger of nuclear weapon race. He partially succeeds with the singing of the non-proliferation nuclear Treaty in 1968.
In 1966 he publically criticizes Leonid Brejnev’s measures against dissidents. In 1967 he publishes the three Conditions of Sakharov which makes people aware of baryogenesis. In 1968 he publishes Reflections on progress, coexistence and intellectual freedom which circulates as samizdat.
As of the 1070s, Sakharov dedicates himself to theoretic research on elementary particles. It is also at that time that he creates a “committee for the defense of human rights and political victims” with Valery Chalidzé and Andreï Tverdokhlebov, and later with Igor Chafarevitch and Podyapolski. In 1972, he marries Elena Bonner, activist for human rights. He receives the Nobel Prize of Peace for his efforts in 1975. As the authorities prohibit him to go get his prize, his wife reads his speech for the Nobel ceremony, in which he talks about extraterrestrial intelligence.
In 1975 he publishes My land and the world which gets translated abroad and in which he denounces the repression going on in SSRU, and a society which “ignores social injustice.” He describes the “bureaucracy of the Party” as a social class enjoying many privileges. Sakharov defines “the current soviet society as a “state capitalist society”,” adding that “thousands of others share this point of view, abroad as well as in SSRU – in our country, of course, mostly in a hidden way”. Following some criticism towards the authorities of his country he made at the end of 1979, he is deprived of his privileges and job. He is put under house arrest in Gorki, and is closely watched by the KGB from 1980 to 1986.
Rehabilitated, his is elected in 1988 to the presidium of the Academy of Sciences. In March 1989, he is elected at the Chamber of Soviet Union, the congress of the people’s deputies.
He dies in Moscow on December 14, 1989.
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20/11/2008
SAKHAROV
Welcome to the blog on the Sakharov Prize
The «Sakharov Prize for the freedom of the mind » is given each year by the European Parliament which created it in 1988.
The Sakharov Prize, sometimes called “the little brother” of the Nobel Prize of Peace, encourages and supports the commitment, courage, and perseverance of exceptional men and women from around the world, who are fighting for the respect of human rights, for the freedom of speech and thought.
As 2008 coincides with the 20th anniversary of the Sakharov Prize, and with the 60 years of existence of the human rights, the prize will be given to Hu Jian, Chinese militant and defender of the human rights, AIDS victims, and environment, during the plenary session of December 17th, a solemn ceremony taking place at the European Parliament in Strasburg.
Since the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, and despite numerous successes, the situation keeps declining in various countries.
The voices that warn us against those dangers, the voices that fight to establish truth, are the voices of the defenders of the human rights.
The defenders of the human rights appear as a necessity: when the other countries cannot or do not want to do it, they take a stand, they face danger, they get arrested, harassed and killed to defend not only their causes but also the respect, promotion, and defense of the human rights for all.
The European Union (EU) is based on the principles of freedom, democracy, respect of the human rights and basic liberties. It is to affirm its commitment to those values and stress the role which it wants to play in their defense that the European Parliament created in 1988 the “Sakharov Prize for the freedom of the mind” from the name of the famous Soviet physician and dissident Andreï Sakharov, Nobel Prize of Peace in 1975.
It is given each year to a public person or to an organization which contributes in its country, in a decisive way, to the fight in favor of “the human rights and basic liberties, in particular the right to the freedom of opinion, protection of the rights of the minorities, respect of the international public right, development of democracy, and establishment of the Nation State.”
The candidatures, which have to be backed up by at least 25 European deputies, are examined by the Commission of Foreign Affairs of the Parliament, the same commission which writes the annual report on the situation of the human rights in the world, and on the politics of the human rights of the EU in its external relations. After this examination, three candidatures are presented at the Conference of the Presidents, a body made of the president of the Parliament, and of the presidents of the various political groups, who choose the winner.
This year for the Sakharov Prize, eight names have been suggested by the eurodeputes.
The Commission of Foreign Affairs has selected three candidates for the final selection which will take place on September 22nd.
The winner of the 2008 Sakharov Prize, Hu Jia, was chosen by the Conference of the Presidents of the EP in mid-October.
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