VZCZCXRO7218
OO RUEHCN RUEHGH RUEHVC
DE RUEHBJ #4075 3022245
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
O 282245Z OCT 08
FM AMEMBASSY BEIJING
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 0648
INFO RUEHOO/CHINA POSTS COLLECTIVE

UNCLAS BEIJING 004075 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR G/IWI, EAP/CM 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PHUM PREL PGOV KWMN KPAO CH
 
SUBJECT: 2009 INTERNATIONAL WOMEN OF COURAGE NOMINATION: ZENG JINYAN 
 
¶1. Embassy Beijing is pleased to nominate rights activist Zeng 
Jinyan for the 2009 Secretary's Award for International Women of 
Courage.  An inspiration to many within her own country and 
throughout the world, Zeng represents not just courageous women 
activists, but all those who strive for justice, human rights and 
human dignity.  Zeng first earned fame for "blogging truth to power" 
during a six-week period in early 2006, when Chinese authorities 
detained her husband Hu Jia, a well-known activist on issues such as 
HIV/AIDS and the environment.  Since then, Zeng has steadfastly 
refused to yield to PRC Government pressure and intimidation, 
despite being placed under house arrest with her infant daughter 
following Hu Jia's imprisonment on trumped up charges of "inciting 
subversion." 
 
¶2. Nomination details: 
 
Name:  Zeng Jinyan. 
 
Occupation:  Rights activist and mother. 
 
Date of Birth:  October 9, 1983. 
 
Country of Birth/Citizenship:  China. 
 
Passport #:  To be provided later, if possible. 
 
Contact Information:  To be provided later. 
 
¶3. Justification: 
 
Zeng Jinyan is a Chinese rights activist who first earned fame for 
"blogging truth to power" during a six-week period in early 2006, 
when Chinese authorities detained her husband, the rights activist 
Hu Jia, who has worked on issues such as HIV/AIDS and the 
environment.  Refusing to yield to PRC Government intimidation 
despite being placed under house arrest, Zeng blogged about her 
famiy's life under constant surveillance and harassment until 
August 2008, when authorities removed Zeng and her daughter from 
Beijing for the duration of the Olympics.  After being returned to 
her home in Beijing following the Olympics, Zeng bravely returned to 
her blog, posting about her ordeal, her family and Hu Jia's 
condition.  Previously, Zeng Jinyan and Hu Jia made a 31-minute 
video documenting their earlier house arrest from August 2006 to 
March 2007.  In April 2008, Hu Jia received a 
three-and-one-half-year sentence on trumped-up charges of "inciting 
subversion." 
 
An inspiration to activists within her own country and throughout 
the world, Zeng represents the admirable efforts not just of 
courageous women, but all those who strive for justice, human rights 
and human dignity.  Zeng and her family have been subject to 
near-constant harassment, house arrest and detention since the 
beginning of 2006.  During recent months, she has cared for her 
infant daughter while under house arrest and with her husband in 
prison.  Zeng has nevertheless steadfastly continued to publicize 
actively both the plight of her family and human rights conditions 
in China.  Zeng said that blogging helped her "learn to fight back." 
 "If a person cannot live with dignity," she wrote, "then what is 
the point of enduring it anymore?  If I keep being afraid of the 
politically powerful but invisible dark forces and my work is 
stalled, then what will happen to the old people, children, patients 
and volunteers in the AIDS villages?" 
 
Time magazine recognized Zeng's courage prior to the Olympics by 
naming her one of the world's 100 most influential people in 2007. 
Time called Zeng, who is nicknamed "Tiananmen 2.0," the "online 
progeny of the protester who blocked a column of advancing tanks 
during China's Tiananmen uprising in 1989."  On October 23, 2008, 
the European parliament awarded Zeng Jinyan's husband Hu Jia the 
Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. 
 
¶4. Embassy contact:  Brooke Spelman, telephone +86-10-8531-3827, 
e-mail .