The Year of the Dog (Part Three)
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AUGUST 8
The Beijing Summer Olympics will open in precisely two years.
In applying for the games, the Chinese government promised to improve its record on human rights, to increase freedom of expression, and to allow foreign media outlets to report freely on the country’s affairs.
SEPTEMBER 4
Autumn in the Year of the Dog begins in a tense atmosphere. Messages come from Hu about setbacks to the human rights movement.
Towards the end of August, the blind activist Chen Guangcheng from Shandong Province was sentenced to four years and three months’ imprisonment for “damaging property and organising a mob to disturb traffic”. Chen’s legal counsel are unable to attend the court hearing because the authorities arrest them on the eve of the trial.
In Beijing, one of the leading lights of the human rights movement, Gao Zhisheng, is also in custody, though at this stage his whereabouts are unknown. Gao’s law office has defended many victims of human rights abuses, including members of the banned Falun Gong.
Elsewhere, two other legal advocates – Yang Zaixin and Guo Feixiong - are assaulted and beaten up.
It is in this climate that Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao sets off for Helsinki.
The biggest talking points at the ASEM 6 Summit in the Finnish capital are China’s booming economy and its burgeoning power.
A separate conference is held on business opportunities in China.
SEPTEMBER 7
Zeng Jinyan calls first thing in the morning. Hu Jia has been snatched from home.
Zeng reports that at around 8 a.m. a group of men appeared at the door and threatened to force their way in if the door was not opened.
“The men were not in uniform and they did not show any identification or documents. They said they were from the Zhongcang police station.”
The men insisted that Hu Jia go with them. Zeng demanded to see an arrest warrant.
“They started to take Hu Jia downstairs with them. I tried to go after them, but they stopped me on the stairs.”
Hu’s latest disappearance spreads quickly to news agencies abroad.
That same evening, however, an SMS message comes unexpectedly from his phone. He is back home. According to the police, the questioning will continue at a later date.
SEPTEMBER 12
Hu’s phone line and Internet connection at home have been cut off. He finds a neat workaround. With the help of friends, he gets a card for the laptop that allows him to access the Net via a wireless GPRS link.
Hu and Zeng live in a modern residential suburb. The housing company that runs Bobo Freedom City has its own discussion forum on the Net at www.boboren.com.
“What was happening in the neighbourhood today? I saw a load of police cars about”, asks one resident.
Hu Jia responds to the message-board thread, explaining that a diplomat from the British Embassy had attempted to pay a visit to see him, but that the police had intervened and turned him away.
“That same Sonata has been standing in front of my house for weeks. Who are those guys?” asks another poster.
Zeng explains that the police are keeping tabs on her husband, who is a human rights activist. A couple of residents express their support. Many seem to regard Hu and Zeng as a disturbance.
“I’ve heard that there are spies from Taiwan living in our house. Is it your family, then?”
“I think you have a political problem. I don’t believe the police would spend so much time and energy on you for nothing.”
The board’s moderator interrupts the discussion.
“I suggest you do not discuss politics here any more. I think it would also be a good idea to refrain from talking about why there are security officials around. I believe everyone knows this country’s rules regarding the use of the Internet. I don’t want our site and these pages to get shut down because there is too much politics going on here.”
“Agreed”, replies one user.
“I totally agree”, writes another.
OCTOBER 3
Hu feels the net tightening around him.
One after another, leading activists in the human rights movement in China are being rounded up and arrested, most recently the lawyer Guo Feixiong.
Hu sends me a list of his relatives’ phone numbers by e-mail.
“Just in case something happens to me.”
OCTOBER 10
I arrange a party in Beijing. Invitations have gone out to the representatives of NGOs, to people from the cultural world, and some journalists.
I consider inviting Hu and Zeng. But Hu would not be able to get out, and many Chinese acquaintances say that if Zeng comes, they will not. They do not want to be seen in company that the government considers sensitive or frowned upon.
From time to time the police have interrogated Hu’s and Zeng’s acquaintances and friends. Some have been scared off by the experience and have cut their ties to the couple.
“Hu is in house arrest the whole time, and when he isn’t, he’s under arrest. I don’t even remember the last time I saw him. The last occasion I tried to visit, the police stopped me at the door”, says one long-time friend of Hu’s.
Even their friends occasionally have trouble understanding Hu Jia’s rebellious streak. The guy is destroying his own life, they say.
“Young people just want to live their own comfortable lives. Many things in China are changing for the better. Not everyone sees the need to complain”, says one friend.
A journalist friend believes that Hu has set his course on sacrifice.
“Hu Jia believes that society needs people like himself. His thinking is that change will come only if there are some who are willing to put their entire life on the line for it.”
OCTOBER 29
Quite out of the blue, Zeng Jinyan has been given permission to travel abroad. The government presumably had no idea what she was planning.
She travelled to India. There she managed to get an audience with the Tibetan spiritual leader in exile, the Dalai Lama.
While his wife is away, Hu Jia is alone at home and unable to go out. He has his medication in the apartment, but the food is starting to run low. In an e-mail, Hu says he has protested to his minders that even in prison the inmates are permitted to take exercise outside. After negotiations, Hu is allowed to go to the shops.
He is permitted to walk the 200 metres or so from his home to the nearest store. The agents on the security detail follow at his side. Hu buys rice, vegetables, tea, and other necessaries. Then the police escort him back to the apartment.
From one day to the next, Hu waits at home alone. The police give no sign of what they intend to do with him.
NOVEMBER 25
Several messages come every day from the e-mail account of “freebornchina”.
Most of Hu Jia’s mails concern the blind activist lawyer Chen and the other attorney, Gao Zhisheng. These two have become the most prominent human rights cases of the year.
Hu reports that activists have been collecting money on behalf of Gao’s children, so that they will be able to continue their schooling. Postcards demanding Chen’s release have been made up abroad. Hu wonders how they could be circulated within China itself.
Hu’s messages always end with the same signature: “Hu Jia, Bobo Freedom City, 98 days under house arrest.”
“… 110 days under house arrest.”
“… 132 days under house arrest.”
Hu writes that the U.S. Embassy in Beijing has called him up and expressed its concern over the situation of defenders of human rights in China. Hu is also in regular contact with officials at the embassies of Great Britain, Germany, and France.
Within the EU, Finland belongs among those who choose not to stroke China the wrong way. Since the massacre in the square in 1989, the European Union has had an arms sales embargo in place on the PRC.
Finland supports the lifting of the ban, and takes the view that sales should not be tied to the Chinese human rights situation.
Even though Hu Jia spends the greater part of his days at the computer, little by way of information about him can be found from the Chinese Internet.
When one makes a search in Chinese on his name, the pages that come up refer to a diver who shares the same name. This other Hu Jia took a gold medal on the 10-metre platform at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, to add to earlier silver medals from Sydney.
Hu Jia the activist is mentioned in only a couple of places, for instance an interview in a Hong Kong newspaper.
China’s most important search engines will not open pages that contain information the government deems sensitive. Google, too, takes part in the self-censorship exercise.
In English, the situation is different. A search on Hu Jia leads to links to Amnesty International, to Radio Free Asia, and to the open-source encyclopedia Wikipedia, but none of these pages will open up to a PC browser in China.
The censorship apparatus blocks out politically ticklish pages.
Hu and Zeng both have their own blogs on the Windows Live Spaces server abroad, at hujiachina.spaces.live.com and zengjinyan.spaces.live.com, but from China these sites cannot be accessed and read.
The Chinese state has its own reality, even in cyberspace.
On the Chinese Internet, Hu Jia is an athlete and a national icon. On the Net in the world outside, Hu Jia is a persecuted defender of civil rights.
Continued. Please click on the link below.
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 Four)
SAMI SILLANPÄÄ / Helsingin Sanomat
sami.sillanpaa@hs.fi
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