(New York) – The Chinese government should release laboratory results and ensure access to appropriate treatment for imprisoned human rights activist Hu Jia, Human Rights Watch and Physicians for Human Rights said in a letter sent to President Hu Jintao today. The two organizations expressed concern that Beijing prison authorities have failed to release to him or his family the results of routine blood tests taken to address Hu’s chronic hepatitis B and are not providing appropriate care to manage his related liver cirrhosis, diagnosed in 2006.
The organizations pressed China to address Hu’s health concerns, saying that close monitoring and prompt treatment is critical to halt regression of liver damage. Hu was recently announced as the winner of the 2008 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought by the European Parliament. He was sentenced to a three-and-a-half-year prison term on April 3, 2008, for “inciting subversion against the state.”
