WHEN Hou Xiaotian left China to carry her campaign for human rights overseas, she knew she might never see her husband again.
The day before she left, Ms Hou sneaked into the military hospital, where her spouse is under armed guard, to catch a glimpse of him. She saw an emaciated man with sunken eyes and sickly skin, showing the effects of a four-year-long bout with hepatitis and a deteriorating liver.
Ms Hou's heart was torn, but it told her she must go. So did her husband, Wang Juntao, 35, one of China's most prominent dissidents.
''He pushed me to leave China and not let him drag me down,'' Ms Hou, 30, said through a translator here.
Ms Hou, who left her country in September to study human rights at New York's Columbia University, has been in San Francisco to accept an award for her husband from the Chinese Democratic Education Foundation.
Human rights groups such as Asia Watch and Amnesty International say that Mr Wang, who also has heart disease, is close to death from years of medical neglect and squalid prison conditions.
