Prisoners in Freedom City.

As everyone knows, starting from Aug. 8 2008 Beijing City (China) will host the next Olympic Games. As i read this news, i thought that was so good for a country like China to have and organize Olympic Games. What a good occasion to show the world that, at the end, China Government is taking seriously the Human Right issues, that China is encouraging (after a long time) the coming inside the country of thousands of journalists...they expect at least 20,000. You know what does it mean? It means hundred of thousands of: cameras, cell. phones with cameras, internet connections, YouTube etc...Obviously China already knew about that, that's why i thought...wow, they decided to open the doors of information to the world, China is ready (in 2008) to let the world discover what's going on over and inside there. Unfortunately the story i'll tell you in this post doesn't seem to follow all my good expectations. This is the story of a really nice family, living in Beijing, in a complex with the unlikely name of Bo Bo Freedom City. The family is composed by husband (Hu Jia), wife (Zeng Jinyan) and a beautiful two months old daughter (Quianci). Hu Jia is an advocate, he's 34 years old and gained international attention for his advocacy on behalf of AIDS patients, farmers and the environment. Zeng is a blogger and activist, and in the last few weeks she became a mother too. On Dec. 27 2007 -little more than a month ago- Hu was at home with his wife, with Zeng's grandmother and Quianci, when 20 policemen burst in at around 3 p.m., disconnetted their internet connection and phone lines to prevent them from telling the outside world, and arrested Hu. According to Chinese Human Right Defenders, police officers remained in the house after Hu have been taken away in order to prevent Zeng telling anyone what had happened. They showed a warrant for his arrest for "subverting state authority". No one knows where he's now being held. When police entered in his house, he was chatting on Skype with some friends, and Zeng was bathing their daughter. What a dangerous and subverting people!!! Mr. Hu began his activism in 1996, he converted to Buddhism, became vegetarian and joined a no-profit environmental group as a full-time volonteer. He later met his wife when they where volonteer at the same no-profit AIDS group. Now the authorities have forbitten Hu's lawyers to meet with him on the grounds that the case involves a state secret. Their daughter is the youngest political prisoner in the world. Can you believe that they forced a two months old baby into house arrest? Are they fuckin crazy? Or what? I hope that this story will have an happy end, what i hope is that Hu, is going to be free by Aug. 8, when China will be under the entire world attention. I hope this country will recognize human rights for its citizens... come on guys, we're living in 2008, let's get over with all those bullshit about propaganda, comunism, socialism, ideology, misinformation, army, war, mind control...this world needs freedom, this world needs free and easy communication beetwen people, this world needs more love and less money and politics. Thank you for your time and attention.

Plese watch Prisoners in Freedom City on YouTube (just digit the title on YouTube's banner)

New York Times - International Herald Tribune - rsf.org