BEIJING - The awarding of a major European human rights prize to jailed Chinese activist Hu Jia on Thursday is welcome foreign recognition of his and other campaigners' work, his wife and dissidents said.

"I think Hu Jia would be very happy because his work has now received everyone's validation," Zeng Jinyan, Hu's wife, told AFP by telephone.

The European Parliament awarded the prestigious Sakharov Prize to Hu for his years of efforts to highlight human rights abuses in communist-ruled China.

Hu was jailed in April for three and a half years on subversion charges, and Zeng has complained he is suffering from ill health in prison due to liver cirrhosis and anaemia.

Zeng, 25, who is being held under a loose form of house arrest along with their 11-month-old daughter, expressed hope that the award could improve his situation.

"I have always felt that support for Hu Jia will be helpful to him in the long term," said Zeng, who was allowed a rare prison visit to see Hu on Wednesday.

The thin, bespectacled Hu has become China's best-known rights campaigner over the years, highlighting government abuses, environmental degradation and the plight of China's AIDS sufferers through blogs and email.

He was passed over for the Nobel Peace Prize this month, causing some dissidents to express dismay that one of their community still had not won the award.

But they expressed hope that the Sakharov prize could provide much needed support for the human rights cause in China.

"It's hard to say at this point what sort of impact this would have on human rights in China but I do think it will be positive," said Qi Zhiyong, a longtime dissident who lost a leg after being shot during the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.

"It will help to promote the protection of human rights in China. This is a good thing for China's people."

Dissident journalist Dai Qing, who has campaigned against the environmental and social costs of China's Three Gorges Dam project, said the award showed the world was not cowed by China's growing clout into ignoring rights abuses.

"This shows the outside world cares deeply about human rights in China and is at least willing to express moral support for people like Hu Jia," she said.

"For the European Parliament to give Hu this award it really warms my heart."

Hu's mother, Feng Juan, 72, praised her son?s work on human rights, AIDS and environmental issues.

"If this prize is to commemorate him after all this work, then it is good," she said, as she expressed hope his sentence would be cut short.

"Of course we hope he will get an early release, get his sickness cured, let him be with his daughter. He regrets he cannot be with his daughter. He cries over this."

In New York, rights group Human Rights Watch called on China to immediately exonerate or grant medical parole to Hu.

"Hu Jia was incarcerated for doing nothing more than exercising rights expressly guaranteed by China's constitution," said Sophie Richardson, the group's advocacy director.

"If the government won't exonerate Hu, it should at least release him to get proper medical care."