Europe Gives Chinese Dissident Human Rights Award

The European Parliament struck a blow for human rights and annoyed the ChiCom government in Beijing by awarding the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought to Hu Jia, a dissident currently in prison. His crime, according to the BBC, was “chronicling instances of abuse and alerting both fellow Chinese human rights activists and foreign news organisations.” Andrei Sakharov would approve of the award.

European Parliament President Hans-Gert Poettering spoke on behalf of the entire assembly saying that the parliament “firmly and resolutely acknowledges the daily struggle for freedom of all Chinese human rights defenders. The European Parliament is sending out a signal of clear support to all those who support human rights in China.”

Daniel Cohn-Bendit and Monica Frassoni, two of the Green Party’s leaders, said the award was “a reflection of this very spirit of this prize, which supports free thought and honours human rights defenders fighting repression.” They also criticized the ChiCom government for its crackdown on freedom during August’s Olympics.

Naturally, the followers of Mao were upset. Foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao whined, “We express strong dissatisfaction at the decision by the European Parliament to issue such an award to a jailed criminal in China, in disregard of our repeated representations.” He also said the parliament’s decision was “a gross interference in China's domestic affairs.”

China’s ambassador to the EU, Song Zhe, said this will “inevitably hurt the Chinese people once again and bring serious damage to China-EU relations. Not recognising China’s progress on human rights and insisting on confrontation will only deepen the misunderstanding between the two sides and is not conducive to the promotion of the cause of world human rights.”

However, today is the opening of an Asia-Europe Meeting [ASEM] of 43 nations in Beijing. Mr. Liu said of the prize, “Relative to so many pressing international affairs, it's too trivial to dwell on.” Then, perhaps, his government will let Mr. Hu collect his €50,000 prize by visiting Strasbourg personally.

© Copyright 2008 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

Kensington Review Home