Civil rights activist Hu Jia and his wife, Zeng Jinyan. (The Epoch Times)
Prof. Stein Toeneson is head of the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo, where the Nobel committee resides, and he has accurately predicted who will win the prestigious prize before. He was one of the few who predicted that Al Gore and the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change would win the Nobel last year.
This year, Prof. Toeneson has tipped Mr. Hu Jia and Mr. Gao Zhisheng, two intrepid dissidents imprisoned in China for their activism, to claim the prize when it is announced on Friday.
The Nobel Prize will be formally awarded in Oslo on Dec. 10, the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Prof. Toeneson decided this year's winner should be someone from China because, while the Olympics were a great success for China, they did not result in the improvements in human rights that Beijing had promised when awarded the Games.
Human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, known as “the conscience of China.” (The Epoch Times)
“[The Olympics] did not lead to the expected improvements in the way that opposition is treated in China. On the contrary, there were arrests and many measures taken to stifle the opposition and move people away so they would not disturb the Olympics,” Mr. Toeneson told The Epoch Times.
However, the Chinese regime is not exactly amused. Liu Jianchao, a spokesman for the regime's foreign ministry, has said that such an award would "hurt Chinese people's feelings.”
Both Hu Jia and Gao Zhisheng have become icons among Chinese dissidents.
Raised in abject poverty in a cave in Shaanxi province, Gao went on to become one of China’s top lawyers, championing the rights of the disenfranchised and oppressed. It was after he protested the ruthless persecution of those who practise the spiritual discipline of Falun Gong that Gao, a Christian, got in deep trouble.
His licence to practise law was revoked and he was placed under house arrest. Following numerous arrests and a trial from which he was excluded, Gao was seized in Sept. 2007 and has not been seen since. According to an inside source, he has been heavily tortured.
Hu Jia’s work focused on environmental issues and the rights of AIDS patients. He criticized Beijing for its mistreatment of Gao and other dissidents, including blind civil rights activist Chen Guangcheng and land rights activist Yang Chunlin.
Soon after he addressed the European Parliament via telephone in Nov. 2007, Hu was placed under house arrest. In April of this year he was convicted of “inciting subversion of state power,” for which he was sentenced to three and a half years in prison. His wife and child are held under strict house arrest.
Neither Gao nor Hu were under any illusions about the nature of the regime they lived under. In an article on his blog dated Sept. 10, 2007, Hu wrote:
“Everyone should know that the country that is about to host the Olympics is one without democratic elections, freedom of religion, independent courts or independent unions. It prohibits protests and labour strikes. It is a state that carries out widespread torture, discrimination, and employs a large secret police system. It is a nation that violates human rights standards and human dignity, and is not ready to fulfill its international obligations.”
