The Year of the Dog (Part Four)

DECEMBER 19
     
     
Hu Jia has been kept under house arrest in Bobo Freedom City for more than five months now. There has been no arrest warrant; no charges have been brought, no legal procedure, nothing.
      How is it possible that China, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, the world’s fourth-largest economy, one of the world’s leading countries, can justify these actions?
     
The Chinese Ministry of Justice is unwilling to comment.
      The telephone number of the Ministry of State Security is not listed.
      The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, well, they hold regular press briefings.
      My questions to the spokesperson Qin Gang are straight to the point: Why has the well known human rights activist Hu Jia been kept a prisoner in his own home and guarded by state security agents? Which piece of legislation allows the Chinese government to place its citizens under house arrest without any legal process?
      “I am not aware of the case you are talking about”, Qin replies. “China is a country ruled by law. The authorities operate according to laws and regulations.”
      The Q&A sessions of the Ministry press briefings are normally published on their website at www.fmprc.gov.cn . My questions on Hu Jia are not published.
     
Legal scholar Teng Biao, a professor at China University of Political Science and Law, disagrees with the government position on Hu Jia’s house arrest.
      “It is utterly illegal”, he says.
      Recent days have seen a number of important trials.
      The verdict and sentence against the blind activist Chen Guangcheng was upheld in a second hearing. Witnesses invited by his defence team could not make it to the trial, because they were kidnapped a couple of days beforehand.
      In Beijing, the trial of lawyer Gao Zhisheng began secretly so that his lawyers were not able to attend.
     
Over the phone, Hu Jia says that he is worried about the fate of his friends.
      He has spent his time watching movies, such as Tokyo Trial, a lengthy documentary about the Japanese war-crimes tribunal from 1946-1948, and Hunt for Justice, which deals with war criminals from the Former Republic of Yugoslavia.
      In those movies the evildoers are brought to justice.
      Hu sounds rather down. Imprisoned in his own home, he finds it hard to entertain himself.
      “When I want to relax, I go out onto my balcony and stare into the distance.”
     
     
DECEMBER 22
     
     
Lawyer Gao Zhisheng is given a suspended sentence of three years’ imprisonment for subversion.
      The verdict is partly based on charges that Gao has given critical interviews to the foreign media.
      This is exactly what Hu Jia has done, too.
     
     
JANUARY 1, 2007
     
     
It is a cold winter day, so the men watching Hu Jia’s home have gone inside. I peek through the front door glass into the stairwell. The men are playing cards, sitting on their picnic chairs.
      I open the door and rush past the men and up the flights of stairs. They either have no time or no inclination to stop me.
      The residents of Apartment 542 are delighted to have a visitor. For nearly six months nobody - excluding the police and one relative - has paid a call on Hu and Zeng.
      Many have tried and have been stopped by the police. But most - including most family members - have chosen not to come, in order to steer clear of trouble with the authorities.
     
In the corner of Hu’s living room there is a heap of old newspapers. On the table amongst the medicine bottles, the pile of DVDs has grown even taller than on my last visit. In among the Chinese movies, I spot a copy of Basic Instinct 2.
     
Hu Jia looks pale, but he sounds cheerful enough.
      “My health has not changed for the worse, or for the better.”
      In the living room, Hu places his chair on a spot where the sun shines in through the balcony windows. Zeng brings him a cup of yoghurt.
     
There are a couple of weeks left of the Year of the Dog. But at the turn of the Western calendar year Hu has a habit of counting up the days he has spent detained or under house arrest in the past 12 months.
      In 2006 there were 168 such days, more than ever before in his life. Hu was also missing for 41 days in February and March after having been kidnapped, and the rest of the days he was followed everywhere he went.
      “2006 was a very tight year”, Hu says.
      At the beginning of the year, the core of the rights defenders movement, which tried to organise a nationwide protest, was pretty small - maybe a few hundred people.
      In the course of 2006 the government crushed the spearhead of the movement. A dozen leading members were imprisoned or detained, and many others were beaten up and harassed.
      Hu Jia is perhaps the most prominent of those who were not totally silenced. Why is that?
     
It seems after all that China has changed, even in the handling of its dissidents. During the times when Hu’s father was persecuted, there were not even fake trials. There were public executions.
      “The police have told me that five years ago I would already have been locked up in prison for what I do”, Hu says.
      As the Beijing Olympics of 2008 approach, Hu believes the Chinese government is increasingly feeling the international pressure. He also thinks the activists have had an impact. For instance, they managed to draw international attention to lawyer Gao’s case, and eventually he only got a suspended sentence and probation.
      During the year, Hu has given hundreds of comments to international media outlets, and in its own way that may have given him some protection.
     
For the government, Hu Jia’s house arrest is a useful exercise. Not only does it limit his actions, but by listening to his phone and reading his e-mails, the authorities also know exactly who the human rights activists are and what are they up to.
      “I am like the ring-leader of a drug cartel”, Hu says, and he laughs.
      His house arrest may still go on for a long time to come. Zhao Ziyang, the Communist Party leader ousted in the summer of 1989, spent 15 years under house arrest, right up to his death in early 2005.
      Given that, it is no wonder that in the past year many members of the human rights movement, under harassment and pressure, gave up their protests and chose to fall silent.
      “I don’t blame them”, Hu says. “I understand them perfectly. They have to think first and foremost about their families. But when the others keep silent, it is even more important that I speak out.”
      Zeng gets up from the sofa and slips on her coat. She will take a walk outside, if she is permitted. Hu Jia walks to his balcony and looks out into the evening darkness.
      They cannot be seen, but they are somewhere out there.
     
     
FEBRUARY 5
     
     
I have followed Hu Jia’s life for a year . He has always answered all my questions. But there is something personal I have hesitated to ask. Over the phone, Hu answers even that.
      My wife, he says, wants a child really badly.
      “But my life is not stable. Any moment I can be detained or sent to prison. That would break Jinyan’s heart. I don’t want our child to be raised in such a terrible situation. It would not be fair on the kid.”
     
     
EPILOGUE: MAY 18, 2007
     
     
There is hope in the air. Hu Jia and Zeng Jinyan have been invited by several organisations to go to Europe and speak about things in China.
      Earlier, in late February, Hu and Zeng surprisingly received permission to travel and visit Hong Kong.
      For the trip to Europe, which would coincide with the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, when dissidents are actively encouraged to leave Beijing, preparations have been made in secret as much as possible. Over the phone, the couple has sounded excited about an opportunity to get a few weeks of freedom.
     
This is the day Hu and Zeng are due to take a flight to Hong Kong. But in the morning the police intervene. They take Hu and Zeng out of their home for interrogation.
      After Hu is returned home he passes on the news by telephone, with deep disappointment in his voice.
      “The officials told us that we are both now suspected of endangering state security.”
      The reasons the police offered, according to Hu, are media interviews he and his wife gave while they were in Hong Kong earlier this year. “Endangering state security” usually spells big trouble for dissidents. In past cases, it has often meant legal charges and lengthy imprisonment.
      Instead of going to Europe, Hu and Zeng stay together under house arrest.
      “The government is preventing us from going so that we would not disclose negative information about China ahead of the Olympics”, Hu says. “But this kind of action itself only shows the dark side of the government.”
      Human rights organisation Amnesty International condemned the Chinese actions: “This is the latest example in a growing pattern of arbitrary detention and surveillance of human rights activists in the run up to the 2008 Olympics. China should lift the restrictions on Hu Jia and Zheng Jinyang immediately so they can continue with their peaceful human rights activities,” said AI China researcher Mark Allison.
     
Helsinki was scheduled to have been one of the stops on Hu Jia’s and Zeng Jinyan’s tour. Now they will be once again under house arrest in Bobo Freedom City “for an indefinite period”.
      Zeng Jinyan’s blog at Live Spaces may be blocked in China, but she was listed among the "100 Most Influential People in the World" in a recent issue of Time Magazine.
      In a trio of mainland Chinese names with an ironic symmetry that is hard to miss, the Time list also included Chinese President Hu Jintao and Liu Qi, head of the Beijing Olympic Organising Committee.
     
     
This article was first printed in the March edition of Helsingin Sanomat’s monthly supplement Kuukausiliite. The entire text has been translated and the Epilogue was added on 20.5.2007, after news broke of the couple’s being denied leave to visit Europe.

More on this subject:
 The Year of the Dog - A Chinese activist's story
 The Year of the Dog (Part Two)
 The Year of the Dog (Part Three)

Links:
  Hu Jia (Wikipedia)
  China´s most influential unknown person (Media Channel)
  Time Magazine: 100 Most Influential People in the World, 2007
  Chen Guangcheng, one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in 2006
  Chen Guangcheng (Wikipedia)