Prominent Chinese dissident Hu Jia (胡佳) said he wants to resume his activism, but was weighing the impact on his family, in his first reported comments after being released from prison at the weekend.
During a telephone interview with Hong Kong’s Cable TV, Hu stressed the importance of “loyalty to morality, loyalty to the rights of citizens.”
“You should be loyal to your conscience,” he said in comments broadcast late on Sunday.
One of China’s leading rights activists and government critics, Hu returned to his Beijing home early on Sunday, his wife Zeng Jinyan (曾金燕) said on Twitter, after completing a more than three-year sentence for subversion.
Hu’s release came just days after outspoken artist Ai Weiwei (艾未未) returned to his Beijing home after nearly three months in police custody.
Hu, 37, was jailed in April 2008, just ahead of the Beijing Olympics, after angering the Chinese Communist Party through years of bold campaigning for civil rights, the environment and AIDS sufferers.
He won the Sakharov Prize, the European Parliament’s highest human rights honor, later that year while in prison.
Hu now faces one year of “deprivation of political rights” — essentially a ban on political activities that typically includes not talking to the media.
Chinese police have blocked access to his Beijing home, suggesting he may have been placed under some form of house arrest.
Hu said in the interview that his family was pressuring him to stay out of trouble.
“They have told me: ‘Live an -ordinary life and don’t clash with the regime because this regime is very cruel and it arbitrarily violates the dignity of its citizens,’” Hu said.
“I must try to console my parents and do what I can to console them ... but I can only tell them I’ll be careful,” he added, in a strong indication he would like to return to activism.
Hu is widely expected to be hit with the same strict curbs as those apparently applied to Ai and a range of other activists and rights lawyers, who seem to have been ordered to keep quiet after their release from custody.
On her Twitter page yesterday, Zeng said well-wishers hoping to visit Hu would not be allowed in, apparently referring to the police surrounding their apartment.
“I’m slowly reintroducing him into society and arranging his life and work. I don’t think it is necessary to say anything more.”
Last week, Zeng said her husband needed treatment for cirrhosis of the liver, a disease that worsened while he was in prison as a result of inadequate medical care.
An editorial in yesterday’s -English-language Global Times, which is published for foreign consumption, complained that the support Hu enjoys in the West was linked to a Western bias against China’s government.
“Hu and other people win Western applause not because of what they have done for Chinese society and world peace, but simply because they are anti-Chinese government,” the editorial said, in the only mention of Hu in state media.
“Mr. Hu had better keep a sober mind in the face of Western praise, just as China should keep its eye on the various comments coming from the West,” it added.
KINGPIN: Marset allegedly laundered the proceeds of his drug enterprise by purchasing and sponsoring professional soccer teams and even put himself in the starting lineups Notorious Latin American narco trafficker Sebastian Marset, who eluded police for years, was handed over to US authorities after his arrest on Friday in Bolivia. Marset, a Uruguayan national who was on the US most-wanted list, was passed to agents of the US Drug Enforcement Administration at Santa Cruz airport in Bolivia, then put on a US airplane, Bolivian state television showed. “The arrest and deportation were carried out pursuant to a court order issued by the US justice system,” Bolivian Minister of Government Marco Antonio Oviedo told reporters. The alleged kingpin was arrested in an upscale neighborhood of Santa
ACTIONABLE ADVICE: The majority of chatbots tested provided guidance on weapons, tactics and target selections, with Perplexity and Meta AI deemed to be the least safe From school shootings to synagogue bombings, leading artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots helped researchers plot violent attacks, according to a study published on Wednesday that highlighted the technology’s potential for real-world harm. Researchers from the nonprofit watchdog Center for Countering Digital Hate and CNN posed as 13-year-old boys in the US and Ireland to test 10 chatbots, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, Deepseek and Meta AI. Eight of the chatbots assisted the make-believe attackers in more than half the responses, providing advice on “locations to target” and “weapons to use” in an attack, the study said. The chatbots had become a “powerful accelerant for
FAKE NEWS? ‘When the government demands the press become a state mouthpiece under the threat of punishment, something has gone very wrong,’ a civic group said The top US broadcast regulator on Saturday threatened media outlets over negative coverage of the Middle East war, after US President Donald Trump slammed critical headlines from the “Fake News Media.” The US president since his first term has derided mainstream media as “fake news” and has sued major outlets over what he sees as unfair coverage. Brendan Carr, head of the US Federal Communications Commission — which oversees the nation’s radio, television and Internet media — said broadcasters risked losing their licenses over news coverage. “The law is clear. Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will
SCANDAL: Other images discovered earlier show Andrew bent over a female and lying across the laps of a number of women, while Mandelson is pictured in his underpants A photograph of former British prince Andrew and veteran politician Peter Mandelson sitting in bathrobes alongside late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein was unearthed on Friday in previously published documents. The image is believed to be the first known photograph of the two men with Epstein. They are currently engulfed in scandal in the UK over their ties to their mutual friend. The undated photograph, first reported by ITV News, shows King Charles III’s disgraced brother and former British ambassador to the US sitting barefoot outside on a wooden deck. They appear to have mugs with a US flag on them
RSS