Zeng Jinyan, a blogger, dissident and the wife of imprisoned blogger and AIDS activist Hu Jia, has been disappeared by the Chinese government, along with the couple’s child, according to Agence France Presse (via Inquirer.net). Zeng went missing on August 7, the day before the Olympics were set to begin.

Zeng, who was nominated for the Sakharov Prize along with her husband, has criticized the activities of the Chinese secret police on her blog and continued her blogging after her husband was sentenced.

Zeng’s husband, Hu Jia, was sentenced to three and a half years in prison for “state subversion,” or something.

Zeng is one of many dissidents the Chinese government has eliminated from public view in their attempt to cleanse the Olympics of reality.

Speaking outside the courthouse Thursday, Hu Jia’s lawyer Li Fangping said his client was convicted of charges of inciting subversion. He said the court’s evidence against Hu Jia included Internet articles he had written and interviews he gave to foreign media.

AFP reports that the verdict on arrested Chinese human rights activist and blogger Hu Jia is due to come down Thursday.

“We hope Hu Jia will be freed. But we are not optimistic,” lawyer Li Fangping told AFP on Monday after being informed by the court of the verdict date.

Li said the majority of such cases ended in a guilty verdict, adding that Hu could be sentenced to over five years in prison.

The Chicago Tribune reports that Chinese blogger and activist Hu Jia has been arrested. The charge is “subverting state authority,” though in China, as in many countries that repress expression, the actual charges might as well be “consorting with leprechauns.”

The reality is Hu Jia blogs about sensitive issues and has been arrested before. The couple had been under house arrest since May. Perhaps it’s true that this part of a new storm of repression prior to the 2008 Olympics to take place next summer in Beijing.

Hu and his wife, 24-year-old fellow blogger Zhen Zinyan, were under house arrest when police barged into their Beijing home Thursday afternoon. Activists say the police disconnected the couple’s telephones and Internet connections and seized a computer, memory sticks and documents. Zhen, who gave birth six weeks ago to a daughter, was not taken into custody.

Information from Reporters Without Borders indicates the triggers for this latest arrest may have been Hu’s participation, via webcam, in a European parliamentary hearing about human rights in China that took place in November in Brussels, Belgium, and another webcam appearance at the Foundation de France award ceremony in Paris on December 5, at which Hu accepted a free speech award.

Using his webcam, Hu participated in a European parliamentary hearing in Brussels on 26 November on the human rights situation in China. He said at one point during the hearing: “It is ironic that one of the people in charge of organising the Olympic Games is the head of the Bureau of Public Security, which is responsible for so many human rights violations. It is very serious that the official promises are not being kept before the games.”

Here is a link to Hu’s Chinese blog. Because it is a Microsoft Windows Live Spaces blog, you must have an account and be logged in to read it. Here is a link to a rough machine-translation of Hu’s blog.

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Update: GV reports that Hu Jia’s lawyer was not allowed to visit his client.