Beijing detains Hu Jia, shoots self in foot once more

China charges leading human rights activist

SHANGHAI - One of China's most outspoken human rights campaigners has been formally charged with "inciting subversion of state power."

No further details of the charges were released, but Hu Jia's arrest last month came shortly after he testified by telephone to a European Parliament committee concerning "Olympic-related rights violations" by the Chinese government. He faces a lengthy jail sentence.

Hu's family was notified that charges were filed by the prosecutor's office in Beijing on Thursday. His wife, Zeng Jinyan, and their two-month-old daughter, who bloggers are now calling "the world's youngest political prisoner," have been under house arrest since armed police snatched Hu from their home on Dec. 27. Hu's supporters have "mapped" his apartment in the eastern suburbs of Beijing on the Internet and dozens of people have tried to take baby formula and milk powder to Zeng, but the 20 police stationed permanently around her building have thwarted their efforts. Only Zeng's mother and mother-in-law are allowed to visit.

China has ignored appeals by the European Parliament, the U.S. government and the European Commission to release Hu, an AIDS campaigner who in recent years has become - along with his wife - a prolific blogger on the human rights situation in China.

Hu has a liver disease which deteriorated during a past detention and is once again worrying his supporters. Police say he is getting his medicine, but his lawyer has not been able to visit him and check on his condition.

Reporters Without Borders, a worldwide press freedom group, called the charges against Hu outrageous.

"This charge is an insult to the diplomatic efforts of many countries who have expressed their views following the arrest of this free expression activist, six months ahead of the Olympic Games," it said.

Around the world, advocacy groups are growing concerned that the leverage they hoped to gain from the Beijing Olympics to force China to improve its human rights record is not materializing.

"The preparations for the Olympics are having an overall negative impact on human rights developments in China," according to Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director for New York-based Human Rights Watch. "In recent months the government has increased censorship, cracked down on human rights defenders and put the brakes on growing social demands for better rights protection, all in the name of painting a picture of economic success and social harmony ahead of the Games."

Richardson warned: "China runs a serious risk of tarnishing its reputation and the legacy of the Games."

Blogger Rebecca MacKinnon, an assistant professor of journalism at Hong Kong University, argued this week that China's leaders are "shooting themselves in the foot" with their heavy-handed tactics in the Hu case.

Every Olympic host country has to put up with protesters and opponents, she said.

"What the Chinese government doesn't get is that the mainstream international media views protests and dissent as a pretty normal thing which often isn't newsworthy in its own right about 80 per cent of the time - that is, unless you make martyrs out of the protesters and dissenters and put their two-year-old babies under house arrest."