Chinese Netizens Rally in Support of Hu Jia

By RADIO FREE ASIA
January 8, 2008

Ordinary Chinese have left numerous support messages online for detained AIDS activist Hu Jia and his wife and baby, who remain under tight restriction at the couple's Beijing apartment. Authorities are meanwhile clamping down on blog posts and comments about Hu, who some believe was detained for his outspokenness around the Beijing Olympics.

"I am a neighbor," read one comment to Zeng's blog, which has now been blocked. "Please tell me how I can deliver baby formula to you."

"This is to add my comment to the others, and to tell the world that the Chinese people love justice and we love the light," said another. "We are praying for you."

The authorities have cut off Hu's wife Zeng Jinyan from telephone and Internet access, effectively detaining her and her baby daughter under house arrest.

Video taken by the couple in recent months shows a team of national security police camped outside the couple's apartment round the clock; the police are turning away any journalists who try to visit Zeng, but she was briefly captured by a UK television crew peering from the window, her baby in her arms.

Chinese blogger Isaac Mao said it had taken some time for the news of Hu's Dec. 27 detention for "subverting state power," to filter through to Chinese netizens, but that now they were reacting.

"They have almost certainly got wind of the news via the overseas media," Mao told RFA's Mandarin service. "Now, a lot of grassroot media in China are reporting Hu Jia's detention."

"Some are even getting together to send Zeng some baby milk powder. There is a lot of concern, because some of the milk powder was not delivered but was intercepted by those guarding the door," Mao said.

"People are not only sending the milk powder but are also making a public record of the fact. People have got used to much more intellectual freedom in the past year or so they are willing to make judgments and even to play a part in spreading the news of events like this," said Mao, a keen proponent of citizen journalism and grassroots Web development.

>> Read the complete report