Hu was rushed to hospital last weekend with acute pancreatitis and ‘could die at any minute,’ fellow activists say.<\/p>\n
2017-05-03<\/p>\n
A Chinese rights activist and former winner of the European Union’s Sakharov human rights prize is critically ill in hospital after being admitted last weekend.<\/p>\n
Hu Jia, 43, was taken to Beijing’s You’an Hospital on Saturday with acute pancreatitis, and is critically ill, he told RFA.<\/p>\n
“I have been taken ill with sudden acute pancreatitis, and I called the ambulance myself,” Hu told RFA in a video sent from his hospital bed on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
“The doctor diagnosed me, then issued a critical notice,” Hu said. “Acute pancreatitis carries some likelihood of death.”<\/p>\n
“I am on nil by mouth and a 24-hour drip,” Hu said. “This situation requires intensive care, but I am still conscious, although very weak following several days of anti-inflammatory medication.”<\/p>\n
But he vowed to “return to the fray” and continue to fight for change in China.<\/p>\n
“There will be a short delay while I recover and get discharged from hospital, but after that I will return to the fray and continue my activities promoting change in China,” he said.<\/p>\n
Hu’s ex-wife Zeng Jinyan flew overnight with the couple’s daughter to be with Hu in hospital on Wednesday. Calls to Zeng’s cell phone rang unanswered, however.<\/p>\n
Friends said he is temporarily unable to speak owing to the infection, a high fever, and a risk of cross-infection.<\/p>\n
Fellow activist Qi Zhiyong, who was maimed when a tank ran over his legs on the night of June 3, 1989 in Beijing, said he had visited Hu in hospital on Wednesday too.<\/p>\n
“He hasn’t been able to eat for the past week, nor drink any water, and he is pretty groggy,” Qi told RFA.<\/p>\n
“Hu wasn’t doing too badly a few days ago, but now his condition is getting worse and worse,” he said. “The doctor said he could die at any moment.”<\/p>\n
“Anything they do for his liver will be bad for his pancreas [and vice versa], and Hu has hepatitis B at cirrhosis of the liver,” Qi said.<\/p>\n
‘He could go at any time’<\/strong><\/p>\n He said Hu’s parents had also arrived at his bedside, but doctors said he shouldn’t receive any other visitors.<\/p>\n “He could go at any time, die. That’s a big danger,” Qi said.<\/p>\n Jiangsu rights activist Xu Liyan said she had waved to Hu through the door, rather than entering the room.<\/p>\n “Several dozen people came [to visit] from all over,” she said. “But nobody went into his room.”<\/p>\n Activist Jiang Jiawen, who traveled from the northeastern province of Liaoning to visit Hu, said many of his visitors are under surveillance by China’s state security police.<\/p>\n “I don’t know why the state security police need to be here; it’s not as if Hu Jia can do anything when he’s so sick,” Jiang said.<\/p>\n A campaigner for human rights and AIDS victims in China, Hu was awarded the Sakharov Prize, a major human rights award, by the European Union in 2008.<\/p>\n He has acted as a key source of information for foreign media on human rights and environmental violations, government abuses, judicial injustices, and the mistreatment of dissidents.<\/p>\n More recently, Hu has been a vocal supporter of jailed Uyghur dissident Ilham Tohti, regularly speaking out against Chinese government policy in the troubled northwestern region of Xinjiang.<\/p>\n Reported by Xin Lin for RFA’s Mandarin Service, and by Wong Lok-to for the Cantonese Service. Translated and edited by Luisetta Mudie.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hu was rushed to hospital last weekend with acute pancreatitis and ‘could die at any minute,’ fellow activists say.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3680,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"topic":[],"class_list":["post-3681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3681","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3681\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3681"},{"taxonomy":"topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/iuhrdf.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/topic?post=3681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}