An empty chair

An empty chair with a photograph, a videomessage from his wife, and the direct testimony of Elena Bonner and several past recipients of the prize: that’s the setting in which the European Parliament awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought 2008 to the Chinese dissident Hu Jia in a ceremony on 17 December, during the EP’s plenary session in Strasbourg. The winner himself was absent, since is serving a prison sentence in Beijing; his commitment to human rights was entrusted to the words sent by his wife and those of the widow of the Russian physicist after whom the Prize is named. The Sakharov Prize is now in its twentieth year.Persecuted activist. This year’s Sakharov Prize went to Hu Jia, a human rights activist and dissident in the People’s Republic of China. The causes to which he has dedicated himself in past years are many: they range for environmental protection to the prevention and treatment of Aids, and the request to the government of his country to “publicly recognize the massacre in Tienanmen Square” in 1989. Arrested on several occasions, Hu Jia was able only once to address European Members of Parliament; that was during a videoconference in November 2007, when he was under house arrest. His views were sought on the occasion of a meeting on human rights in preparation for the Olympic Games in Beijing this summer. Accused by the Chinese authorities of “incitement to subversion of state power”, he was sentenced to three and half years in jail on 3 April 2008: a sentence for which he is still being held in prison.The words of his wife. “I don’t have a passport and so could not come to Europe to withdraw the Sakharov Prize” that the European Parliament has awarded “to my husband. Hu Jia is in prison in Beijing. His physical condition has improved a little. On the other hand we cannot freely communicate with each other, because everything is subjected to censorship”. Zeng Jinyan is the wife of the prize-winner: she explains – through a videomessage sent to Strasbourg – that the Chinese dissident had only heard of the award of the prize in recent days. “Hu would have dearly liked to have been there. Then he said to me that perhaps the European Parliament had awarded him the prize for his work in support of the environment and the fight against the spread of Aids”. “For human rights – added Hu Jia – I’ve done so little… Indeed, I promise to redouble my efforts”. Zeng Jinyan “courageously recorded this message, knowing the risks she runs”, explained the President of the EP, Hans-Gert Poettering. In her video, the young lady points out Hu Jia’s wish “that an international network be created to support the families of those who are fighting for human rights”.Economic and political freedoms. “No exceptions can ever be made to respect for human rights, because they are the basis for the future of the world and of our civilizations”, declared Elena Bonner, widow of Andrej Sakharov, in her address in the chamber at Strasbourg during the ceremony for the award of the prize named after her husband for freedom of thought. First, she praised the courage of Hu Jia and all those active in each continent for the defence of the same principles. “Human rights are being violated in so many countries, and they are not always properly defended in Europe”. In her speech to the EP, and then in meeting journalists, Elena Bonner supported the cause of “all those individuals and organizations that are defending essential freedoms”; she denounced the violations of democracy in China, in Turkey (the Kurds) and also in her own country. “The situation in Russia is awful” as regards democracy, she said: “Russians and Chinese have chosen the wrong road. The capitalism with a human face” they propose “is impossible in authoritarian regimes. Economic without political and personal freedoms lead nowhere”. Fact FileAndrej Dmitrievitch Sakharov (1921-1989), after whom the European Parliament’s Prize for Freedom of Thought is named, was a Soviet mathematician and physicist. Considered the inventor of the hydrogen bomb, he campaigned between the 1950 and 1980s to curb the nuclear arms race between the USSR and USA. Founder of the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights and victims of human rights abuses, he repeatedly intervened in support of dissidents in Eastern Europe. In 1975 he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, but was unable to withdraw it in person. Arrested in 1980, he was released and rehabilitated by President Michail Gorbaciov in 1986. Since 1988 the European Parliament in Strasbourg has awarded the prize that bears his name to individuals or organizations that have made an important contribution in the fight for the protection of human rights, democracy, freedom of thought and expression. Previous prize-winners include Nelson Mandela, Alexander Dubcek, Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo, Ibrahim Rugova, the UNO, Alexander Milinkevich and, last year, Salih Mahmoud Osman.