FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

December 10, 2009
Human Rights Day

Contact: + 215.939.7852

The AIDS Policy Project calls for Hu Jia's immediate release on humanitarian grounds and for the government to allow him and his family to leave China.

Chinese AIDS and human rights advocate Hu Jia, vilified in the Chinese press but winner of the 2008 Sakharov Prize for Human Rights, remains in prison in Beijing. Hu Jia, who suffers from active hepatitis, has been imprisoned for almost 2 years. His health is deteriorating, he has lost a lot of weight, and his hepatitis medication no longer works, but he is not allowed access to a better one.

"To the World Health Organization and other international agencies, tolerance of dissent coming from civil society is regarded as a strength and a sign of a government's stability," commented AIDS Policy Project member Allison Dinsmore.

Hu Jia tried to leave China before he was detained, and before his detention sparked widespread international condemnation and embarrassment for the Chinese government, including bad press that continues to this day.

Zeng Jinyan is Hu Jia's 26 year-old wife. She blogs frequently on her husband's condition, Chinese human rights issues, and her family.

Zeng Jinyan was selected as TIME Magazine's 100 People Who Shape Our World in 2007 as a hero and a pioneer. Today she faces daily police harassment and surveillance--which extends even to her neighbors and friends--and has been held under house arrest several times, including episodes when the police stayed in the house with her, her young baby and family.

In honor of Human Rights Day, the AIDS Policy Project has begun the volunteer effort to translate Zeng Jinyan's blog into English.  Zeng Jinyan is the wife of Hu Jia, the renowned Chinese AIDS activist jailed in Beijing.

Please see http://www.aidspolicyproject.org; we will update the blog every few weeks.


Kate Krauss
AIDS Policy Project
http://www.aidspolicyproject.org
kate@aidspolicyproject.org
twitter: aidspolicyproj
skype: katekrauss
tel: +1 215-939-7852

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The AIDS Policy Project is based in San Francisco, CA and Philadelphia, PA.
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