Published by: World Tibet Network News, Saturday, October 26, 1996

By Mure Dickie

BEIJING, Oct 25 (Reuter) - The family of jailed Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng on Friday welcomed a decision by the European Parliament to award him a prize for freedom of thought, but Beijing slammed the honour as rude interference.

The choice of Wei, who has spent most of the last two decades in jail, as 1996 Sakharov prize laureate would give him encouragement, his family said.

"I feel very happy... we feel grateful to the European Parliament for its support," Wei's brother Wei Xiaotao told Reuters in a telephone interview.

The Chinese foreign ministry said the award served as encouragement for action against the Chinese government that had already damaged Sino-European ties.

"It is a rude interference in China's internal affairs and judicial jurisdiction," the ministry said. "We express great regret and anger at this decision of the European Parliament."

Wei, regarded by many as the father of Chinese pro-democracy dissent and a nominee for this year's Nobel Peace Prize, was jailed for 15 years in 1979 and had been paroled for less than a year before being detained again in April 1994.

Last December he was sentenced to a further 14 years in prison for subversion and for funding democracy activists.

The European Parliament announced on Thursday that Wei had won the 15,000 Ecu ($19,000) Sakharov prize for freedom of thought, to be awarded at a ceremony in Strasbourg in December.

Former winnners of the prize, created to honour the Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov, include South African President Nelson Mandela and Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

The award put further strain on ties between the parliament and Beijing, which on Thursday angrily denounced a recent meeting between parliamentary officials and the Dalai Lama, China's exiled arch-rival for Tibetan loyalties.

Wei was a criminal convicted of revealing state secrets and threatening state security who had broken the terms of his release. No country had the right to interfere in his case, the foreign ministry said.

The award had already harmed ties with Europe, it said.

Wei Xiaotao, who recently met his brother in jail at the Nanpu saltworks in the northern province of Hebei, said Wei would have to wait until next month to learn of the award.

"He will have to wait until our next meeting to hear about this prize... that place is very closed to news," Wei Xiaotao said. "There's no chance that anyone there will here about it and tell him."

China has in recent months cracked down hard on the tiny band of remaining dissidents who have not yet fled into exile or been imprisoned.

Leading critic Liu Xiaobo this month was sent to a labour camp for three years after he co-authored a petition calling for the impeachment of Communist Party chief Jiang Zemin.

Former student leader Wang Dan, who spent four years in jail for his role in 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing that were bloodily crushed by the army, is currently awaiting trial in Beijing on the capital charge of subversion.

The award of the Sakharov prize to Wei was unlikely to change Beijing's stance on dissent, his brother said. "I don't think it will have a big influence," he said.

Wei's family had no plans to use the prize money that came with the Sakharov prize, Wei Xiaotao said.

"It's his money... In the future, when he comes out, he can use it," he said.