By Emma Graham-Harrison and Benjamin Kang Lim
BEIJING (Reuters) - Imprisoned Chinese AIDS activist Hu Jia is suffering from a serious disease, possibly liver cancer, his wife said Thursday after making a formal appeal to security forces to release him on medical parole.
Hu's mother saw a suspected diagnosis of liver cancer on a consent form she was asked to sign when he was taken to a prison hospital for tests on March 30, his wife Zeng Jinyan said.
Hu, 36, who already suffered from cirrhosis of the liver, has been in ill health for months, she told Reuters in an interview, but was unexpectedly kept on in the hospital after the tests.
The results were supposed to be released on April 2, Zeng said, but his family have been told that they are not out yet.
"I suspect there are two possible reasons why we haven't received results -- either it is a difficult and complicated disease that is hard to diagnose, or this is a situation that will be very hard to resolve with an outlook for the patient that is not very optimistic," she said.
If Hu, due for release in 2011, is suffering from cancer it will come as a blow to China's dissident community, after a string of high-profile detentions and sentences and a tightening of finance rules for non-profit groups.
A practicing Buddhist, Hu started with advocacy for rural AIDS sufferers and went on to become one of China's most vocal advocates of democratic rights, religious freedom and of self-determination for Tibet.
He was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison by a Chinese court in April 2008, for "inciting subversion of state power." Since 2004, he had also spent long spells under house arrest and in what rights groups describe as illegal detention.
HOPES DIM
Zeng presented her request for medical parole Thursday morning, but prison officials, she said, did not make it clear whether Hu Jia had liver cancer. And even if he did, the officials told her, he would not necessarily be given parole as there were "many factors to consider".
He would likely only be released if efforts to cure his illness failed, the officials added.
"The chance (of him getting parole) is extremely small," Zeng said hours after the meeting, adding that even if he were let out of prison he would likely still be under house arrest.
But she is throwing her energy into the bid to get him home, because prison food and living conditions will make any illness he has get rapidly worse, she said.
"Hu Jia's health has been steadily deteriorating since he went to prison...if he stays in there until next year his liver problems will continue to get more serious".
He is a strict vegetarian, so does not get proper nourishment from prison food, is forced to do strenuous labor and has trouble sleeping, she said.
His prison conditions improved when he was moved to a "model" prison in Beijing shortly before being awarded the European Union's top human rights prize in October 2008, the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of thought.
But even though he is now allowed one monthly visit and four short phone calls with his family, he still has to shower in cold water all year round and in the hospital is still shackled.
He also has stomach pains, diarrhea, problems swallowing, and has had flu-like symptoms since last year. When she last saw him on March 18 he had lost weight, Zeng said.
China says Hu, who has been nominated and tipped as a serious contender for the Nobel Peace Prize at least twice, is a criminal who broke the law.
Editing by Ron Popeski
Reuters Canada
