Chinese Who Could not Enjoy This Chinese New Year

It is already the lunar New Year Day in China. Presumably, more than a billion people have managed some kind of New Year Eve, in the past 24 hours. The majority did so with their family members - this has been the foremost important family reunion annual festival in China for centuries. However, some people have not been able to spent the day as they and their beloved ones have wishes.

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Hu Jia, the human rights activist, 2008 winner of the European Saharov Prize for Freedom of Speech, is held in prison, charged for "subsersion of state power" because of his online writings. He has severe liver illness that requires constant care and the prison has not provided him adequate medical care. His health has been deteriorating.

His wife, Zeng Jinyan, herself actively involved in human rights and civil rights activities, had wished to see him in a long-planned prison visit. She carefully chose a red colored jacket to cheer him up. However, at last minute, she was notified by the State Security Police that her prison visit permission had been revoked. Only Hu Jia's mother was allowed to visit him. He was said visibly disappointed at missing the opportunity to greet his wife for the Chinese New Year.

If you can read Chinese, please visit Zeng Jinyan's blog and learn more about the heroic couple. Their daughter has just had her first birthday in November. Since her born, she has spent only a few weeks with her father.

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Chen Guangchen, the blind legal activist and winner of the 2007 Prize, is, too, staying behind the bar, for his actions to help poor peasants in his home town. He is blind and constantly in need of both medical care and routine help in his daily life. Instead of providing necessary facilities to Chen, prison guards have frequently abused him physically and mentally.

Chen's wife, Yuan Weijing, has received constant abuses at home, too. She is not allowed to travel, followed by police and local thugs whenever she goes out. The couple's two young children have been harassed repeatedly as well.

In the past years, Hu Jia's wife Zeng Jinyan and Chen Guangcheng's wife Yuan Weijing have formed very strong bond to support each other. However, with each of the women being confined to their home locale at the moment, their mutual support is constrained severely. We learn about Yuan Weijing mainly from Zeng Jinyan's blog.

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Liu Xiaobo, arguably the most well-known Chinese dissident in the past ten years, has been in and out of China's prison system - including formal prison and the notorious "reeducation through labor" (lao jiao) system - for many times since June 1989. He is under house arrest at the moment.

In early December 2008, Liu joined 300 others in China to issue the political campaign, Charter 08. The charter was formally released online on the 60th anniversary of the World Human Rights Day, December 10, 2008. Hours earlier, Liu was already taken away by secret police for his role in organizing the charter. It was not until days later that his wife, Liu Xia, was allowed to see him in an undisclosed location outside Beijing.

Since then, it has been understood that the Lius are under house arrest. The authorities censored all information, online or via other media, about Charter 08 and about Liu Xiaobo. He has not been allowed to get back to his normal way of contacting the outside world - by the Internet.

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There are many others inside China who, due to political persecution, cannot reunited with their beloved ones for this Chinese New Year.

Let us send our warmest greetings to all of them. Remembering them, praying in your own chosen manner for them, joining hands together to support them.

Today is the New Year Day of the Chinese lunar calendar. It is the beginning of the year of Ox.