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The following translation are excerpts from a zengjinyan.spaces.live.com post of September 8 (in Chinese there), apparently by Zeng Jinyan (Hu Jia’s wife). If you are fluent in Chinese, please take a look at her original post in Chinese. My translation isn’t necessarily accurate.
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I have reason to believe that Hu Jia’s situation has deteriorated. We don’t know his current situation.
During all of August, we haven’t received a letter from Hu Jia. We received one on September 5 that told us that he hadn’t received the twelfth letter, and no explanation as to why he didn’t receive it.
(…)
According to the prison rules, Hu Jia may have telephone conversations with relatives twice a month, about ten minutes every time. But up to now, he also hasn’t been able to make such phone calls, not even once. The State Security Police’s explanation is that the prison telephone system is undergoing technical changes (that’s what they said two months ago, that’s what they are saying now). Every time I’m calling the prison administration, the other side asks who I am, I say that I am a relative of Hu Jia. The other side then says: “I’m only temporarily taking the phone calls, the person in charge is not here – went to a meeting.” On my asking as to when the person in charge will be back, the answer is “I don’t know.” So actually, we have no chance to contact the prison administration directly, but have to go through the State Security Police.
Besides, State Security Police had a word with me, as they wanted me to do persuasion work on Hu Jia. He shouldn’t embarrass the prison staff, thus improving his situation. Otherwise, the prison may not allow us to meet in the future. I asked Hu Jia which problems were existing, and it basically is that Hu Jia has made improvement suggestions, and has persisted on human rights problems, which made employees and managers of the prison unhappy [or unpleasant - I'm not sure. translator]
According to the prison rules, the prison should send relatives notifications when meetings can take place – one specific date per month. But noone of his relatives has received such notification. I’m simply calling the State Security Police from time to time and ask to see Hu Jia. In the past, I made requests, and they told me a certain time when meeting would definitely be possible. But now the police person in charge says: I don’t know when, it’s not sure, I don’t know how things are going there at the prison right now, await their reply…
Hu Jia’s mother and I are worried, as we don’t know what happened. We don’t know if there has been inappropriate treatment – we don’t have any information. And so far, the prison hasn’t guaranteed Hu Jia’s monthly [probably liver indications checkup. translator].
I hope the prison authorities will act in accordance with the rules, send meeting notifications and definitive meeting times. I also hope that the prison will not, without reasons and explanations, take out family letters, or make arrangements regarding Hu Jia’s work and rest conditions or his food and drink that would be bad for his medical condition. Besides, the law does not ban lawyers, or relatives and friends from seeing Hu Jia. Hu Jia’s mother-in-law (my mother) is not listed on his registered permanent residence paper, so she was barred from seeing him. We therefore think that she was barred by the prison with the argument that she wasn’t on his residence paper.
Tags: CCP, censorship, China, Hu Jia, negotiations
September 10, 2008 at 3:53 am
[...] excerpts from a recent blog post by Zeng Jinyan, wife of jailed rights activist Hu Jia, expressing concerns that her husband’s [...]
September 11, 2008 at 9:15 am
I guess this won’t change until China has a elected government. All those promises to increase human rights during the Olympics were pretty much empty phrases.
Anyways, have You translated the text? That’s very nice. I still need a few years until I could do that I guess.
September 11, 2008 at 4:55 pm
Hi Junjie,
an elected government would look like the most likely warranty for a better human rights record, too. That said, there are people who would differ with that, and that´s not only CCP people (who certainly have a vested interest in maintaining one-party rule, centrally and locally alike). There was an interesting discussion about that here a while ago, and it ended with a focus on the rule of law. For sure, the courts need to make decisions according to the law and evidence, without influence from the government, and their decisions would need to be binding for the government. That would be a huge step already – and actually could be even more important than free elections.
Yes, I translated some of Zeng Jinyan´s September 8 post. It´s no spectacular post unfortunately, as many people go through pretty much the same uncertainties and abuse of power, but that makes it just the more indicative.
And while we probably share the same joy in learning China´s language and about its culture, I think it is also important to be aware of the things that are not going well.
As for the promises before the Olympic Games, I find it hard to tell if the human rights situation in general has improved or not. But even if the general situation has improved, the discussion thread I´m referring to above contains one line that sums the whole human rights issue down quite nicely:
The whole point about Human Rights laws is that their purpose is to defend individuals, not “macro” interests. Hu Jia is one of many such individuals. Zeng Jinyan is another.
October 23, 2008 at 4:56 pm
This is a really interesting blog post,I have added your blog to my favourites I really like it,keep up the good work!