A Sakharov Prize Well Awarded

Congratulations to the very deserving Hu Jia, who has been awarded the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought. Named for political dissident and Nobel Peace Prize recipient Andrei Sakharov, the first prize was given to Nelson Mandela and Soviet dissident Anatoli Marchenko (posthumously) in 1988.

Predictably, Beijing is mad. China's ambassador to the European Union, Song Zhe, sent a letter to European Parliament President Hans-Gert Poettering saying that the award "would inevitably hurt the Chinese people and once again bring serious damage to China-EU relations." Amnesty called for Hu's immediate release from Beijing City prison, where he is serving a sentence for "inciting subversion."