The photo is from his pinned tweet. The time was Mar 2018, right after the CCP amended the constitution to allow dear supreme leader to stay in power for more than two terms. The sign in his hands says: “I oppose, Hujia, China, Beijing”.From [Mr. Hu’s Wikipedia page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hu_Jia_(activist%29):
From 1997 to 2000, he started as an environmental activist.
From 2000 to 2006, he participated in AIDS prevention work, in particular, helping the victims of the AIDS epidemic spread during blood plasma collection in Henan. It was during this period when he met Zeng Jinyan
From 2004 to 2008, because of his activism in political issues and human rights issues, Hu Jia was disappeared or under house arrest for many times. He got married and had a daughter.
And in 2008, he was sentenced to jail for 3 years and a half. He as released in June of 2011.
In 2008, the European Parliament rewarded Mr. Hu the Sakharov Prize. He has also been nominated to the Nobel peace prize many times.
Before his arrest, Mr. Hu was especially defiant in protest against CCP.
In 2008, the Chinese magazine Yazhou Zhoukan, aka Asia Weekly, analyzed the emergence of the “Hu Jia phenomenon” in China, saying that Hu Jia had created “the latest model for human rights in China”. Hu Jia emphasized that he “does not know politics, but only wants justice and morality”. Specifically, more and more volunteers from the civil society have been influenced by Hu Jia’s call for “specific solutions to specific problems” instead of ideological appeals, and are doing their utmost to rescue the disadvantaged groups.
(translated from his Chinese Wikipedia page)
The photo is from his pinned tweet. The time was Mar 2018, right after the CCP amended the constitution to allow dear supreme leader to stay in power for more than two terms. The sign in his hands says: “I oppose, Hujia, China, Beijing”.
Before Dec. 2021, Mr. Hu was last seen on Twitter on July 25th, 2021. It says,
After the outbreak of the COVID epidemic in China last Spring, my 83-year-old mother did not go downstairs for three months and gradually became incapacitated and unable to walk. She has been deteriorating for over a year and is now suffering from diabetes, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and is unable to care for herself. I have to spend a lot of time with her to seek medical treatment and take care of her daily life. Today, on the suffering day of my Mother, I am with my mother tonight. To me, a loved one suffering from illness is something more painful than losing my own freedom and health.
By the suffering day of my Mother, he meant his birthday.
After Zeng published her letter on Facebook on Dec 20th, 2021, the debate moved to Twitter very quickly. From Dec 22nd on, my Twitter timeline was dominated by comments. One side blamed Zeng to bring the private life between Hu Jia and her into public space, another side defended her as opening up a necessary conversation on domestic violence and unfair treatment of family wealth in China.
Nowhere was Hu Jia to be seen. But Hu Jia’s friends were very actively defending him and discrediting Zeng. They seemed to be talking to Mr. Hu directly. We will show the fight between the two sides in the third part. Despite the fight, public kept asking, where is Hu Jia? On Dec 27th, Hu Jia started tweeting again. His first tweet was again about his mother, with a video of his mom in bed calling her own mom, and Hu Jia’s voice, trying to comfort her.
After that, he posted video of his dad eating breakfast. The next tweet was photos of the shelves in his parents room, which were filled with craft-toys and family photos with his ex-wife and their daughter in them. He mentioned that the craft-toys were made in 2014 in Shenzhen when he was sent away from Beijing because of June 4th. His father and daughter made them together. They were under house arrest, he said. He also mentioned two very prominent pro-democracy activists, because, I guess he had to?
Zeng commented on each tweet:
told him it is not respectful to post his mother’s video of suffering to fish sympathy from Twitter public,
reminded him that since the kid had suffered serious threat and bully online and offline, the father should not post her photos here, which Hu Jia agreed before,
asked him if he had asked his father for permission to post his video online.
Hu Jia ignored her. Mr. Hu started intensive postings on Twitter after he posted a response letter on Facebook. It is notable that Mr. Hu was on Twitter intensively since the end of Dec. He never responded to his ex-wife’s comments on Twitter, while he retweeted and replied to many tweets. Meanwhile Ms. Zeng had addressed her messages directly at him, all fell on deaf ears.
On Jan 17th, a Twitter user posted the activities of Mr. Hu on the website:
Then on Dec 31st, Hu Jia posted a response on Facebook. It starts with:
For the past 20 years, I have been regularly deprived of my freedom and will eventually lose my life in the future, but only my reputation cannot be usurped. I have suffered the worst accusations of my life in the past ten days, but not initiated by the Chinese Communist Party’s state apparatus. In order to promote a just and reasonable resolution of the matter, I am making the relevant clarifications.
So, at the very beginning, Mr. Hu was implying that his wife is worse than CCP.
Then he described the timeline of their relation: established relationship on April 3rd, 2004. On July 2nd of the same year, they moved into the apartment building called Bobo freedom city. They got marriage certificate on July 28, 2005. Wedded on Jan 2nd, 2006.
He sternly mentioned that, under the authoritarian system of China, Zeng had to face a very dangerous political pressure, when he was beaten, tortured and disappeared.
Mr. Hu has been in effective house arrest for the past 17 years, and Zeng had been followed by police wherever she went when she was in Beijing. (I forgot to mentioned that when Ms. Zeng was having the abortion, there were 8 police officers waiting outside the operation room.)
Mr. Hu talked about his relationship with his daughter — they have been together for barely 20 months. During Christmas, Easter and summer holidays, Zeng will send the kid back to Beijing for a few weeks.
Hu continued, on Oct 29th, 2014, Zeng had a new boyfriend in Hong Kong and she announced that they were divorced via social media. On Dec 16, 2016, Zeng went back to Beijing to complete the divorce.
Hu listed his activism that provoked the government and his work with victims as reason for being stern and serious with Zeng. He said it must have added so much pressure on Zeng, who was ten years younger and just out of school. He said he never laid his finger on Zeng and he despises domestic violence.
He said that when Zeng wanted to have an abortion out of her free will, he accompanied her to the hospital on Oct 10th, 2011. After the operation, Zeng felt very low so he stayed home to keep her company. Hu said once she asked for some snacks and he was busy working and did not act immediately. Their relationship never recovered after that.
Then Mr. Hu acknowledged that he was treating Ms. Zeng more as a comrade than a wife. He said that he did not give her sufficient emotional care, especially after the abortion. He apologized to her in the letter.
He credited Ms. Zeng for supporting his work during 2002-2012. Also mentioned that Ms. Zeng is one of the people that his parents are most grateful to. He thanked Ms. Zeng for her contribution to him and his family.
Mr.s Hu said that the decision to buy the apartment was made in 2003, in 2006, his mom prepaid the mortgage. It was under his name but the property certificate is with his parents.
He mentioned that after 2012, Ms. Zeng has asked him to sell the big one they have and buy two smaller ones, one in Beijing and one in Shenzhen. He declined because he did not think he could buy property in China because of his political status.
In 2012, after Ms. Zeng went to Hong Kong, she was able to get some monetary reward from the Sakharov prize. Half of the money was given to Ms. Zeng to sponsor her living in Hong Kong.
Mr. Hu also mentioned that his parents gave Zeng 300,000 yuan when she went to Hong Kong. Because Hong Kong was very expensive, Ms. Zeng asked for help, she was hoping to get a million yuan as down payment to buy a place in Shenzhen to lower the cost. Mr. Hu said that his parents sold their old apartment for 2,700,000 yuan and gave Ms. Zeng 1 million.
Mr. Hu mentioned that in early 2021, his parents got 100,000 yuan and sent it to Zeng. They have no more money.
He then described the health problem of his mother. His sister is now paying for the medical cost. And he can only share the care giving with the nanny they hired, since he can’t contribute any money. He said that his sister has refused to talk to him because she resents his political activism.
He also mentioned the houses his father bought for his old age.
He said that was all the properties they have.
As for the family business, he denied that Zeng had any important role. He said she was an ordinary employee. The company was transferred to his sister in 2011. He had no say in the company.
Mr. Hu described how peaceful everyone was when Zeng went back to Beijing for the divorce on Dec. 16, 2016, particularly mentioned that Ms. Zeng had a boyfriend then. He admitted that on paper, Zeng gave up the child support and any rights to the property. But, he said, he wrote a will that everything after he died belongs to the daughter. He said no one is forcing anyone for this agreement.
About the car, it was under Zeng’s name and Zeng transferred it to Mr. Hu before the divorce. And Mr. Hu used this chance describing how he was beaten up by security police. (Because, why not?) At the end, he said the car is worth less than 20,000. He would not sell it to help his child because he need it to drive his parents.
Mr. Hu said in 2020, because of two famous cases, he was controlled by the security police again. And then they took him out for hiking outside Beijing. He met a young poet named Xingya and they kept contact. In June they committed their relationship. In Oct. when Xingya came back to Beijing, it seemed that she moved into the apartment. She wanted to get rid of the things related to Zeng, especially the books in Zeng’s bedroom.
According to Hu, in Dec., Xingya contacted Zeng on Facebook. Zeng was too busy to respond. Xingya decided on her own to throw out Zeng’s books.
Mr. Hu said, ah, I was so busy taking care of my mother and the human rights issues….. they are just so important. I apologize to both ladies.
Mr. Hu said on Dec 21st, Zeng contacted him and sent him many messages about Wang Leehom and Lee Jinglei. She told him that if he does not sell the apartment and give her and their daughter the 6 million yuan, she will publish accusations on Facebook.
Hu described once more the details of his difficulty as a political dissident, his mother’s health problem, his father being old and loving the granddaughter. Promised that his daughter will inherit the money after he die.
At the end, he said:
Thank you to all of you who have discussed the truth from both Jinyan’s (Ms. Zeng) perspective and mine over the past few days. Human rights defenders, both men and women, should have more self-discipline and integrity themselves. Tell the truth, express it rationally, present the facts, and focus on evidence that can withstand verification and investigation.
I am responsible for the truthfulness of what I have said above, and I am willing to accept any evidence and witnesses to test it and bear all legal consequences.
After Hu Jia published his version of the story, someone on Twitter made a list to compare the two sides. We will summarise the difference in the next part. The debate on Twitter has been on for weeks and it is not quieting down any time soon. We will cover it also.