Zeng Jinyan: an Application

The following is a translation of a blog post, written by Zeng Jinyan (曾金燕) on Sunday.

Application

Beijing Municipal Prison;
Beijing Municipal Prison Administration Bureau;
People’s Republic of China Ministry of Justice

I am Beijing citizen Zeng Jinyan. My husband is Hu Jia (胡嘉), commonly named Hu Jia (胡佳), sentenced to three years and six months imprisonment for “inciting subversion of state power” (“煽动颠覆国家政权罪”), currently held at Beijing Municipal Prison with a statutory day of release from prison on June 26, 2011.

On January 14, 2011, when we met with Hu Jia, he suddenly closed his eyes, his face became pale, his lips turned white, his face started sweating, and asked why, he replied that he had pain in his left abdomen. He was unable to keep sitting and we put him to lie on four chairs. His cold sweat became stronger and stronger. When I opened his collar, I found that his clothes had become wet, the cushioned chair, too, and cellmates helped the prison guard to get him to the prison hospital. With that, our meeting had ended earlier.

Besides cirrhosis, Hu was suggested by a prison doctor to have surgery because of (结石) calculus in the past. As the prison hospital doesn’t have the conditions for such surgery, the matter has been delayed so far.

Before his prison term, Hu Jia had been a cirrhosis patient, and as the conditions in prison didn’t provide the appropriate means for its treatment, Hu Jia’s health has deteriorated further. He doesn’t recover from a perennial cold, and there are frequently abdominal cramps, anguish, diarrhea, loss of appetite, slight fever, and weight loss. His cirrhosis condition is not stable. On March 30, 2010, Hu Jia sustained high fever, diarrhea, an unidentified object of three millimeters diameter on his liver, and he was taken to the central prison administration’s hospital on suspicion of liver cancer. On April 9, Hu Jia was taken back to prision, and the spoken notification was that the examination result was “subclinical hyperthyroidism”. Although Hu Jia and his family people repeatedly asked the prison to provide the medical examination report, the prison verbally declined. Because of this, we are worried.

In May 2009 and on April 5, 2010, I repeatedly applied to Beijing Municipal Prison for medical parole for Hu Jia [apparently in written – 申请书],  which Beijing Municipal Prison declined verbally. To date, we, Hu Jia’s family people, haven’t got the medical report on Hu Jia’s illness in written, and have seen his pain during our meetings, and we are worried about the adverse effects the long delay of his condition may have.

Taking this situation into account, I have two requests:
1. providing all medical reports during his prison term to me and his other family people in written;
2. to provide for medical treatment on parole for Hu Jia, for surgery and treatment to contain the further progress of his illness.

Please reply to my request in written. My postal address is Beijing, Tongzhou District, Bobo Freedom Town,[Ms Zeng’s address and the recipients of her letter’s three copies, see beginning of translation].

Yours sincerely
Hu Jia’s wife Zeng Jinyan
January 16, 2011

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Related
Incomplete Medical Examination Report, December 26, 2008