Read the whole article! — Politicarp
BEIJING—Hu Jia, one of China's leading human rights activists, was set free Sunday after 3½ years in prison, but many wonder whether the activist will be truly free — or face house imprisonment, a controversial technique increasingly used by China to silence critics.
Hu, 37, was found guilty for “inciting subversion of state power” in 2008, after he posted essays and co-authored a letter on the Internet, criticizing China’s rights record in the lead-up to the Beijing Olympics.
The letter charged that rather than delivering on its promise to improve human rights if it got the Games, the government had sold the world a bill of goods: the Olympics brought greater restrictions, not fewer.
Hu Jia later won European Union’s prestigious Sakharov prize for Freedom of Thought and was touted as a Nobel Peace Prize contender.
Keen to prevent publicity about Sunday’s high-profile release, Chinese authorities delivered Hu Jia to his home in east Beijing under cover of darkness, at 2:30 a.m.
“All’s well. Very happy. He needs to rest and heal for a period,” his wife and fellow activist Zeng Jinyan posted on Twitter. “Thank you everyone.”
But given the intensification of the current crackdown on activists, Zeng declined interviews.
“I’m worried that doing interviews at this stage might cause problems,” she told the Reuters news agency. “Please understand.”
The Chinese government has used a combination of arrests and threats in a sweep of activists here in recent months, forcing normally outspoken critics to go silent.
