Salon.com > Scott McDonald

Chinese dissident freed; more surveillance feared

Sun, 26 Jun 2011 20:52:00 +0000

A prominent Chinese political activist imprisoned for sedition was released Sunday at the end of his more than three-year sentence, his wife said, though his freedom could be limited by continued surveillance.

A major figure in China's dissident community, Hu Jia advocated a broad range of civil liberties before he was imprisoned in 2008. His 3 1/2-year prison sentence was set to end Sunday.

He returned home before dawn, Hu's wife Zeng Jinyan said in an online message. "Safe, very happy. Needs to recuperate for a period of time," Zeng said in a Twitter message.

No one answered Zeng's phones on Sunday, but she had said earlier she would announce his release on Twitter. She had visited him on Monday at the Beijing Municipal Prison.

Hu, 37, is known for his activism with AIDS patients and orphans. The sedition charge stems from police accusations that he planned to work with foreigners to disturb the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.

Hu's release comes amid one of the Chinese government's broadest campaigns of repression in years as Beijing has moved to prevent the growth of an Arab-style protest movement.

Like other dissidents released recently from jail, Hu might be kept under some sort of continued detention in his home, although such restrictions are illegal in China.

Liu Xiabo wins Nobel Peace Prize

Fri, 08 Oct 2010 13:05:00 +0000

Imprisoned Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for using nonviolence to demand fundamental human rights in his homeland. The award ignited a furious response from China, which accused the Norwegian Nobel Committee of violating its own principles by honoring "a criminal."

Chinese state media immediately blacked out the news and Chinese government censors blocked Nobel Prize reports from Internet websites. China declared the decision would harm its relations with Norway -- and the Nordic country responded that was a petty thing for a world power to do.

This year's peace prize followed a long tradition of honoring dissidents around the world and was the first Nobel for China's dissident community since it resurfaced after the Communists launched economic but not political reforms three decades ago.

Liu, 54, was sentenced last year to 11 years in prison for subversion. The Nobel committee said he was the first to be honored while still in prison, although other Nobel winners have been under house arrest or imprisoned before the prize.

Other dissidents to win the peace prize include German pacifist Carl von Ossietzky in 1935, Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov in 1975, Polish Solidarity leader Lech Walesa in 1983 and Myanmar democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi in 1991.

Chinese state TV confirms visit by North Korea’s Kim

Mon, 30 Aug 2010 12:50:00 +0000

China and North Korea confirmed Monday that their leaders met while the Kim Jong Il was on a secretive trip to his northern neighbor, apparently to seek aid and drum up support for a succession plan.

Though the visit was widely reported on using anonymous officials and relying on spotting of the North Korean dictator's train and motorcade, simultaneous dispatches from both countries' state media were the first official confirmation. They also likely signaled the trip was over. Neither country has in the past not acknowledged Kim's visits until he has returned home.

China Central Television reported on its main evening broadcast that Kim met President Hu Jintao on Friday in the northeast city of Changchun. North Korean state media issued a report at the same time confirming the trip and published a speech Kim gave in Hu's presence.

Neither of the two, as well as foreign diplomats in Beijing who were briefed separately on the visit, mentioned of Kim's son, Kim Jong Un, amid fervent speculation that the ailing leader is grooming his youngest son to take over power of the world's last hardline communist state.