Chinese human rights, AIDS and environment campaigner Hu Jia, who won the Sakharov Prize, is serving a three-and-a-half-year sentence in a Chinese prison for having publicly challenged his country's human rights record in the run up to the Beijing Olympics. He was arrested last November after testifying by telephone before the European Parliament and tried in March 2008 for "inciting subversion of state power".
Choosing nominees for the Sakharov Prize is an invidious task. The Greens/EFA Group in the European Parliament chose Hu Jia over other deserving candidates also because his nomination was likely to secure the approval of MEPs from other political families. The award does credit to those who supported the nomination as much as it honours Hu Jia's commitment. Greens everywhere are delighted that their nominee was a winner.
Not so the Chinese government, which vociferously condemned the nomination describing it as "rude interference" in China's internal affairs and a threat to China-EU relations". In the event, the Beijing Summit on the global financial crisis went through without a hitch on the weekend following the award. The nomination made the award possible and the award made it clear that it is possible to push the envelope on human rights in China and still maintain a working relationship.
Third countries observing these developments may well bank the significance. The European Parliament takes human rights seriously. The strongest direct pressure from one of the EU's major trading partners was not enough to deter it. Countries with a less than squeaky clean human rights record should take note if they have any interest in a hiccup-free relationship with the EU.
Within the EU itself, the pendulum swings between those who would do business with anyone at all and those who would prefer not to become the accomplices of those who violate their own citizens' basic rights. For those who set a great store on such core values of the union, it is vital to swing the pendulum back every time it goes the wrong way, to persist even when it seems hopeless. Hu Jia's prize is encouraging to numberless unknowns whose rights are systematically trampled upon around the world.
Hu Jia will not walk free any day soon because of the award of the Sakharov Prize just as Aung San Suu Kyi remains under house arrest in Burma for her 14th year despite the award of the Nobel Prize. Still, the Chinese government may try to avoid arresting people who speak to the European Parliament in future. Those of us who have spent any part of their lives under an authoritarian regime know this seesaw well. It takes years of such pressure to bring about the desired changes. For years it seems to make no difference but it does take its toll.
Only a few years ago, millions of Europeans lived in countries where it was not safe to speak one's mind. Hu Jia would have been no stranger there. Millions upon millions of Europeans from East and West fully approve of the award of the Sakharov Prize and fully endorse the action of their MEPs in this case. The European Parliament voiced their sentiments and lived its values, their values.
However, awarding prizes which gravely embarrass third countries would be an international hypocrisy if it did not also increase the burden of EU member states to examine their own records; their level of compliance with the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. Above all, it places a burden upon us all not to rely on a comparison with third countries that seem to have no such values.
We would deceive ourselves greatly if we imagine that nothing can be improved in this sector within the EU itself, that every electoral system is perfectly democratic or democratically implemented or that any faults are not the business of the Union. Can we be satisfied with the basic rights that are guaranteed or with the timeliness of the remedies available on their infringement?
Human rights development is a work in constant progress heavily dependant on the sensibility of European citizens to others' suffering. When not enough of us care, the development ceases. If we only care when our own rights are violated it may be too late. The European Parliament touches the heart of the matter every time it awards the Sakharov Prize. To safeguard our own rights we must first safeguard the rights of others as far as we can.
Dr Vassallo is a committee member of the European Green Party.
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