The Netherlands has called on China to release political dissident Hu Jia, sentenced to 3.5 years in jail earlier this week.

‘I have called on China to release him before and I am happy to repeat that demand,’ foreign minister Maxime Verhagen was reported as saying by news agency ANP on Friday.
Verhagen, who was at a Nato meeting in Bucharest, said his sympathies are with Hu Jia’s family, and in particular with his wife and baby who are under house arrest.
China’s image abroad will not be helped by holding the Olympic Games if it persists in arresting and sentencing human rights activists, the minister said.