EU Honors Chinese Dissident, Enraging Beijing

A move by the European Parliament to award a major human-rights prize to a Chinese dissident has Beijing outraged on the eve of a summit on the economic crisis, the Telegraph reports. The government denounced as “gross interference in China's domestic affairs” news that the jailed Hu Jia had won prestigious Sakharov Prize; a delegation including French president Nicolas Sarkozy arrives in Beijing tomorrow.

Hu, after working and blogging on behalf of Chinese AIDS sufferers and other causes, is currently serving a 3½-year prison sentence for “subversion.” European Commission head José Manuel Barroso, also attending the summit of EU members and 16 Asian nations, says he plans to bring up human-rights issues during talks. (More European Parliament stories.)