Wife of Imprisoned Dissident Hu Jia Evicted by Landlord

The wife and daughter of a prominent rights activist has been evicted from her apartment in Shenzhen after the authorities put pressure on the landlord, according to a series of Twitter messages she left.

The pressure on Zeng Jinyan, wife of Hu Jia, comes soon before her husband is due to be released from a 3.5 year prison sentence. He was jailed after a long career spent exposing the Communist Party’s misdeeds, and writing about the importance of civil freedoms.

The President of the European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek, expressed his disdain at the Chinese authorities’ latest move. “Expelling Ms. Zeng from her apartment for no apparent reason would be unjust and completely unfounded. In case of a forceful eviction I expect an open and independent investigation by the Chinese authorities into this case,” he wrote in an open letter.

Buzek met Zeng in 2010 when he visited China. “The regular harassment and surveillance of a young mother with her 3-year-old child is unjustified. She should be allowed to carry on with her everyday life freely, including her activities undertaken for the protection of human rights.”

Zeng publicized the news with a steady stream of Twitter messages. “The landlord said she is a public employee and she cannot endure the pressure anymore. She can only let me go,” one of them said.

Another read: “All negotiations failed. I was forced to move. Preparing to move to an unknown place. The authority’s pursuit and pressure have made a kind-natured mother who has always been tolerant and accepting become a firm protestor.”

She that “tribulation” and “purgatory” lead her from being “a student to social worker, a social worker to rights activist. Now my heart is like a revolutionary.”

With her husband in jail, Zeng faced a series of practical and logistical problems in trying to get on with her life. She spelled out her concerns plainly in the Twitter postings: “My biggest difficulty is that there is no one to help me take care of my child. Hu Jia’s mother is seriously ill. Both my in-laws are over 70 years old but are still being monitored and harassed. My mother can only help me occasionally and temporarily.”

Her three-year-old regularly cries, she wrote; but leaving Shenzhen is not an option. “If I go back to my hometown, my relatives and I will be under house arrest. … There are National Security cars parked at our front door. How can my family manage their shop? My parents and my relatives are tormented mentally, even more so than I!”

Zeng feels this latest harassment is related to her husband’s pending release. Hu Jia was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison for “spreading malicious rumors” and “committing libel in an attempt to subvert the state’s political power and socialist system,” according to Communist Party news outlets.

He had penned several essays criticizing China’s totalitarian leaders, and would often spend his time helping AIDS patients and vulnerable groups protect their rights.

This is the second time Zeng has been forcefully moved on. Security officials and hired thugs began to make her life difficult in Beijing, monitoring her closely and keeping her under house arrest before she came to Shenzhen.

Hu Jia’s prison sentence is set to end on June 26.

Read the original Chinese article.