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.