The application for early release on medical grounds of the imprisoned activist-critic Hu Jia offers China's leaders a golden opportunity to begin repairing their criminal justice system - the weakest link in their campaign to bolster the country's 'soft power'.
Beijing wants the world to admire a 'rising China' not only for its phenomenal economic accomplishments and growing military prowess but also for the quality of its civilisation. Yet, no matter how many Confucius Institutes the government establishes abroad to teach Chinese language and culture, the People's Republic will not win international respect for its political and social progress until it ceases locking up political dissidents and treats those currently detained in a more humane manner.
Indeed, Confucius himself taught government officials to show benevolence and forgiveness in governing and administering punishment. Having recently resurrected the sage, Communist Party leaders should follow this advice. Although many imprisoned Chinese writers are ill and lack medical care, the case of Hu, the 36-year-old winner of Europe's Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, would be a good place to start.
When they detained him in December 2007, claiming that his peaceful support for environmental reform, Aids victims and political and civil rights had 'incited subversion of state power', police officials knew that Hu was suffering from cirrhosis of the liver. That diagnosis had been made shortly after his release from the 41-day 'disappearance' to which police had subjected him in 2006. During that never formally acknowledged confinement, police refused to accept from his wife, herself a human rights activist, the medication that Hu, a hepatitis B victim, required. Consequently his health deteriorated markedly.
Hu's 2007 detention was a formal criminal procedure and, in April 2008, he was convicted and sentenced to 31/2 years' imprisonment. Prison authorities initially permitted him to take medicine for his liver disease. But when he developed a resistance to that medicine (as is common in such cases), they failed - contrary to China's human rights treaty obligations - to provide any feasible alternative. Therefore, during the past 15 months, his health rapidly went further downhill.
Finally, on March 30, legs shackled and hands chained, he underwent tests at Beijing's central prison hospital to determine whether a growth detected on his liver had become cancerous. Last Wednesday, while he was in hospital, his wife and lawyer applied again for medical parole on his behalf. A previous application had been rejected last year. On Monday, the prison administration phoned his family, saying he had been sent back to prison and that his condition was not cancerous and did not warrant medical parole. But the authorities refused to provide any written test results, leaving doubts about the accuracy and independence of the evaluation.
Apparently, Hu will not be allowed to be examined by independent Beijing specialists, denying him internationally required equal treatment with non-prisoners.