- For the athlete, see Hu Jia
Hu Jia (Chinese: 胡佳; pinyin: Hú Jiā; original name 胡嘉; born July 25, 1973 in Beijing), with online name Freeborn, is one of China's most prominent environmental activists and AIDS activists, was involved as an auxiliary member of the team to save the Tibetan Antelope and served as the Executive Director of the AIZHI Institute of Health Education, one of the founders of the AIDS NGO Loving Source.
Biography
Hu Jia’s parents were students at Tsinghua University in Beijing and Nankai University in Tianjin in 1957 when they were labeled as rightists. They were assigned to work in remote areas of Hebei, Gansu and Hunan. His parents often had to live apart until 1978 when Deng Xiaoping came to power and political label held against them was dropped.
In 1996 Hu Jia graduated from the Beijing School of Economics (now renamed Capital University of Economics and Trade, 首都经贸大学) as an Information Engineering major.
An Environmental, AIDS and Democracy Activist
Hu Jia became interested in environmental issues while in university and participated in several environmental organizations including the Friends of Nature led by Liang Congjie[1] [2] and the 1997 Green Camp[3] university student environmental camp led by Tang Xiyang [4].In 1998 Hu Jia was involved in rescuing some wild elk that were threatened by severe flooding that year. Hu was subsequently involved in efforts to protect the Tibetan Antelope that were being slaughtered for their fur.
In July 2000 the writer Wang Lixiong introduced Hu Jia to AIDS activist Wan Yanhai and Hu Jia became involved in AIDS prevention work and took an active part in the AIZHIXING Institute of Health Education AIDS NGO that Wan Yanhai had founded. As one of the founders of the AIDS NGO Loving Source, Hu Jia has been involved in helping people suffering from AIDS and AIDS orphans in Henan Province.
Hu Jia has also been involved in campaigns to release people detained for political offenses, including the AIDS activist Wan Yanhai in August – September 2002, the internet writer Liu Di “The Stainless Steel Rat”, and in anti-Japanese demonstrations. Hu Jia insists this his rights as a citizen of the PRC be respected. When police detain him sometimes for planned activities and sometimes to ensure that he is not active at sensitive times such as the June 4 anniversary, Hu demands that they say under what provision of PRC law he is being detained. Hu says that the security officers are generally unable to do so.
On February 16, 2006, Hu Jia was detained for 41 days. His detention was not acknowledged by the Chinese government. After his return to his apartment in Beijing, where he lives with his wife Zeng Jinyan, also an AIDS activist, Hu Jia was kept under house arrest until March 2007. Two months later, on May 18, 2007, Hua Jia and his wife were put placed under house arrest again, for harming state security.[5] Hu Jia has remained active via emails and blogs despite his house arrests.
According to Amnesty International:
- "Hu Jia is the co-founder of the Beijing Aizhixing Institute of Health Education and an outspoken advocate for people with HIV/AIDS; he has publicly criticised the authorities over their treatment of people with AIDS and other issues. He recently resigned from Loving Source, another non-governmental organization he co-founded in 2003 that helps children who have lost parents to AIDS-related illnesses, in order to prevent the authorities from harassing the group. According to Hu Jia, some international donors who helped to fund the operations of the organization withdrew their support to the group under pressure from the Chinese government and its volunteers were intimidated."
References
- ^ Chinese Environmentalist Liang Congjie On NGO Life
- ^ The Soul of China's Environmental NGOs a China.org article
- ^ "Tang Xiyang Writes About 1996 Green Camp and the Loss of His Wife"
- ^ A Section Censored from Tang Xiyang's Environmental Book "A Green World Tour"
- ^ "Activist Couple Accused of Endangering State Security," Human Rights Watch, May 21, 2007
External links
- The Year of the Dog - A Chinese activist's story
- Chinese AIDS activist missing for six weeks returns home
- Interview With AIDS Activist Hu Jia
- Hu Jia's blog, translated by Google Translate. Rough but mostly understandable. Click on links in a translation to get more material translated.
- Hu Jia's Live Spaces blog in Chinese
- Friends of Nature website (in Chinese)
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