European Parliament awards Chinese dissident human rights prize

The jailed Chinese dissident Hu Jia has been awarded the European Parliament's top human rights award - granted since 1988 to those who stand up for fundamental freedoms - with a symbolic empty chair in the middle of the Strasbourg chamber due to his imprisonment.

"In 1988, one of our first prize winners, Nelson Mandela, was in jail. In 1988, there was also an empty chair for Andrei Sakharov. Here today, there is an empty chair for Hu Jia," parliament president Hans-Gert Poettering sai...