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Sakharov Prize 2008 awarded to Hu Jia
European Parliament Press release October 23, 2008
The European Parliament's Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought has been awarded this year to Chinese political activist Hu Jia, EP President Hans-Gert Pöttering announced in Strasbourg today. The prize ceremony will take place in Strasbourg on 17 December. The decision of Parliament's political group leaders to award the prize to Hu Jia was communicated to the plenary by Mr Pöttering, who said: "By awarding the Sakharov Prize to Hu Jia the European Parliament firmly and resolutely acknowledges the daily struggle for freedom of all Chinese human rights defenders." Hu Jia is a prominent human rights activist and dissident in the People's Republic of China. He has embraced a wide range of causes, including environmental issues, HIV/AIDS advocacy and a call for an official enquiry into the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. He has also acted as a coordinator of the 'barefoot lawyers movement'. Having already been arrested several times, he spoke to MEPs in November 2007 from house arrest via conference call during a public meeting of the EP Human Rights Subcommittee on human rights in China in the run-up to the Olympic Games. As a result he was charged by the authorities with "inciting subversion of state power" and sentenced on 3 April 2008 to three-and-a-half years in jail. Protests against his arrest have come from all over the world. The European Parliament passed a resolution in January 2008 demanding his release. On 8 August 2008 and 6 September 2008, Hu Jia's name appeared alongside other signatories on open letters calling for more attention to be paid to human rights in China. 20th anniversary of Sakharov Prize The Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, named in honour of the Soviet physicist and political dissident Andrei Sakharov, has been awarded by the European Parliament every year since 1988 to individuals or organisations who have made an important contribution to the fight for human rights or democracy. To mark the 20th anniversary, a special event to which all previous winners of the prize are being invited will be held in Strasbourg on Tuesday 16 December. This year's prize certificate will be awarded in Strasbourg the next day, Wednesday 17 December. In addition to the title, the winner receives the sum of ?50,000. Previous winners of the prize 1988 Nelson Mandela and Anatoli Marchenko (posthumously)1989 Alexander Dubcek1990 Aung San Suu Kyi1991 Adem Demaçi1992 Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo1993 Oslobodjenje1994 Taslima Nasreen1995 Leyla Zana1996 Wei Jinsheng1997 Salima Ghezali1998 Ibrahim Rugova1999 Xanana Gusmão2000 ¡Basta Ya!2001 Izzat Ghazzawi, Nurit Peled-Elhanan and Dom Zacarias Kamwenho2002 Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas2003 UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and all the UN staff2004 Belarusian Association of Journalists2005 Ladies in White, Hauwa Ibrahim, Reporters without Frontiers2006 Alexander Milinkevich2007 Salih Mahmoud Mohamed Osman
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