Petition to support press freedom in China
Usually online petitions -- as we all know -- are useless but in this case this can be more of a learning experience for people looking into the issue of freedom of press and expression in China.
This is from Hong Kong.
Dan
Dear friends,
Please sign the signature campaign to release Hu Jia, a human rigths activitist jailed for his criticism against the government, conducted by the Hong Kong Journalists Association and the International Federation of Journalists.
Pls sign before May 12 when the names will send to the Chinese government. Don't ignore it or risk a misunderstanding that we can tolerate unjustice or infringement of freedon of expression.
Best wishes.
Mak Yin-ting
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Dear friends,
Please sign the petition - "Release Hu Jia" at the following link: (better use IE to open the link)
http://www.hkja.org.hk/Host/hkja/UserFiles/File/other/petition_for_hujia.html
Hu Jia is a human rights activist who has been concerned with social affairs, AIDS, environmental issues and defence of the weakest groups in society. Before his arrest by the Public Security Bureau at the end of Dec 2007, he had been under house arrest for a long time. Before he finally lost complete freedom he had been kidnapped, detained for a short period and physically tortured by the police in China. Hu, however, did not bow to these brutalities; instead, he overcame all obstacles and succeeded in disseminating details of human rights abuses within China to the outside world.
Hu Jia was convicted of “inciting subversion of state power” by the Beijing No 1 People’s Intermediate Court on April 3, 2008, for voluntarily accepting two foreign media interviews and publishing five articles from 2001 to 2007 on Boxun, a banned Chinese-language website based in the United States . This is one of the worst cases of anyone being jailed for what he had written in China. His conviction and imprisonment drew a lot of attention and criticisms abroad. The Beijing Municipal Detention Centre denied Hu his right to meet with his lawyer to lodge an appeal against his jail sentence right to the very end of his period of appeal.
The Hong Kong Journalists Association and International Federation of Journalists have been outraged by the verdict and are launching this signature campaign for justice. We hope that the Central Government of China understands our anger and will release Hu Jia as soon as possible. We will present these signatures to the authorities in China on 12th May, 2008 which marks the birth of Buddha.
We need your participation.
Please sign the petition - "Release Hu Jia" at the following link:
http://www.hkja.org.hk/Host/hkja/UserFiles/File/other/petition_for_hujia.html
Please Forward the Message to Everyone You Know.
*** We recommend you use Internet Explorer 6 or above to access the petition webpage
The Declaration
We, as individuals and as a group, fully endorse and unreservedly uphold freedom of expression. We are, therefore, angered by the utter disdain of the authorities for the human rights of activist Hu Jia who was sentenced to three and a half years' jail and one year’s denial of political rights on questionable charges of “inciting subversion of state power” by the Beijing No 1 People’s Intermediate Court on April 3, 2008 for writing five articles and voluntarily agreeing to two interviews by the media.
We believe this is an instance of punishing a man merely for his words. This case not only violates the constitution of China which enshrines citizens' right to freedom of expression, but also breaches international protocols to which China is a signatory and which clearly state that freedom of expression is a basic human right .
We demand that the Central Government of China release Hu Jia forthwith.
Hong Kong Journalists Association, International Federation of Journalists
Email Address︰hkja@hkja.org.hk / ifjchina@ifj-asia.org