Human Rights Day 2010

To mark Human Rights Day, English PEN is paying tribute to our courageous colleague Liu Xiaobo, former President of the Independent Chinese PEN Centre (ICPC), who has today been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo. Currently serving an 11 year sentence in prison in China, Liu’s absence from the ceremony was marked with an Empty Chair.

The awarding of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo is both a cause for celebration and a call to action. It is a reminder that he and more than 40 other writers remain in prison in China; three of them, like Liu, are also PEN members.

Since the announcement of the prize on 8 October 2010, Chinese authorities have tried to undercut the award in every way possible. They have branded Liu a criminal and blocked news reports about the prize; warned foreign governments not to send representatives to the award ceremony; harassed Liu’s supporters, friends, and family; and placed his wife, Liu Xia, under house arrest and prevented her and other family members from travelling to Oslo for the official award ceremony. Still, Liu Xiaobo, Liu Xia, and our colleagues at ICPC are unbowed, and more and more Chinese citizens are seeking ways around the internet firewall to learn more about their Nobel laureate.

This only makes us more determined to celebrate this extraordinary occasion, and more committed to winning Liu’s s release. We are therefore asking all members and friends of PEN to help us do both by taking part in at least one of the actions listed below.

HELP LIU XIAOBO GO VIRAL:

We are asking all our members and friends to read and listen to Liu’s words below, and then to forward them
to 10 of your friends.

By keeping Liu Xiaobo behind bars, and by preventing his wife and brothers from travelling to Oslo to accept the award on his behalf, the Chinese government has done its best to silence this important voice once again.
We can think of no better way to respond, and to celebrate this momentous day, than to flood the world with clips featuring Liu, his wife Liu Xia, and Liu’s poetry and so-called “subversive” prose.

By making Liu Xiaobo’s voice viral, we’ll be accomplishing what the Chinese government has worked so hard to prevent: we’ll be making sure that on this, his day, he is heard around the world. So please take a moment and watch the four short clips below, and read a poem by Liu Xiaobo published today in The New York Times. Then forward these on to 10 others, asking them to do the same.

- Liu Xia telling the story of Chinese authorities confiscating Liu Xiaobo’s work, recorded in Beijing, March 2010
 
- A reading of “Greed’s Prisoner,” recorded in Beijing, March 2010
 
- Liu Xiaobo on freedom of expression in China, 2006
 
- Writers Rally for Liu Xiaobo, New York, December 31, 2010
 
- “Words a Cell Can’t Hold,” translated by Jeffrey Yang  in The New York Times  
 
For more multimedia, Liu’s poetry, and continued updates on his case please visit: www.pen.org/nobel

SEND A CARD OF CONGRATULATIONS TO LIU XIAOBO IN PRISON:
 
Liu Xiaobo
Jinzhou Prison
Nanshan Road 86
Taihe District, 121013
Jinzhou City, Liaoning Province
P.R. China

SEND LETTERS OF APPEAL TO THE CHINESE AUTHORITIES:

Please write to the Chinese authorities demanding the immediate and unconditional release of dissident writer Liu Xiaobo and all those detained in China in violation of Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which China is a signatory. Letters should be sent to the Chinese authorities in Beijing as well as to the Chinese embassy in the UK – see below for details.

His Excellency Hu Jintao
President of the People’s Republic of China
State Council
Beijing 100032
P.R. China

Please note that there are no fax numbers for the Chinese authorities. We therefore recommend that you copy your appeal to the Chinese embassy in the UK asking them to forward it and welcoming any comments:

His Excellency Liu Xiaoming
Embassy of the People’s Republic of China
49-51 Portland Place
London
W1B 4JL

For a full profile of Liu Xiaobo click here.

Liu Xiaobo is one of the 50 key PEN cases featured in ‘Beyond Bars: 50 Years of PEN’s Writers in Prison Committee’ – a very special issue of Index on Censorship. ‘Beyond Bars’ is available to subscribers today and will be launched on Thursday 16 December at the Free Word Centre. If you are interested in attending the launch, please contact cat@englishpen.org. For further information click here or search for #beyondbars on Twitter.

What China’s real friends say about Liu Xiaobo

The Chinese government, of its own free will, added to the country’s constitution a commitment to “respect and protect human rights.” That was 2004. In 1998, it signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; in 2008, it called for a “national human rights action plan.” Foreign governments can’t be blamed for these commitments. Nor can the Nobel Peace Prize committee. Nor can Liu Xiaobo. He is a former president of the Independent Chinese PEN Centre, but he is in jail because he believed in the Chinese government and constitution.

In the days leading up to today’s Nobel ceremony, a simple chorus continued to grow: “Free Liu Xiaobo.”

It comes from every continent. To these words should be added: “Release his wife, Liu Xia, from house arrest.” And, for that matter, the dozens of people on PEN International’s list of writers in prison. And stop harassing loyal citizens who are merely exercising their constitutional rights.

Liu would probably describe all this as the surface tensions of a profound crisis. Somehow, Beijing cannot see that its actions are undermining its own domestic credibility. The Mandate of Heaven, it used to be said of Chinese imperial dynasties, is lost by those who have it. They lose it when they stop ensuring that justice is done. As for the influence that Chinese authorities seek in the world, it, too, is being undermined. All these wounds are self-inflicted.

Leadership and influence may require economic or military clout. But they are also dependent on trust. And Beijing’s failure to embrace the transparency that comes with freedom of expression and human rights constantly gets in the way of building trust around the world.

What Liu has been calling for is clearly laid out in Charter 08, which has now been signed by thousands of people in China. For Beijing to denigrate it by claiming it represents Western influence reveals a surprising naïveté. The principles of free speech, human rights and equality are sought after as much in Asia as in Europe or the Americas or Africa. Of course, each takes on somewhat different forms in different societies, but they are clearly set out in China’s constitution and have deep roots in its history.

Mao Zedong made this clear in his 1957 essay “Contradictions.” Mao’s favourite novelist, Lu Xun, made fun of authoritarian rulers, saying: “The chief trouble is we cannot stop men thinking.”

There is a classic division between China’s reformers and authoritarians. Many reformers, like Liu, are outside the structures of power. Many are inside. They may want different kinds and amounts of reform. They may not know or like each other. But they share some desire for a more equal and open society.

On the other side are those men of power frightened of change. They seem to be protected by the security forces and some part of the legal system.

The reformers represent an important force. Liu’s Nobel may at first seem to have provoked a crackdown. But in October, the Central Committee held its annual meeting and it was as if the prize had burst the illusion that China could win international respect without political and social reform.

Chinese authorities insist that Westerners are picking on them. The opposite is true. People everywhere want to be friends with China, and not just for economic reasons. Take the tens of thousands of writers in more than 100 countries who belong to PEN. Why would we not want to have an active, friendly relationship with one of the world’s greatest cultures?

The question, then, is what is meant by friendship. In Cold War terminology, you were either for China or against. Friendship meant little more than blind loyalty – no criticism from either side. For those of us who admire and have spent time in China, this is deeply unsatisfying.

More and more people, such as Australia’s Kevin Rudd, point out that in Chinese, a true friend is called a zhengyou – someone who is open and honest, not afraid of criticism, what you would expect with a long-term personal friend. This Nobel could be seen as a gesture of friendship.

Let me put all of this in writer’s terms. The people the regime jails are usually prickly and uncomfortable, like good writers and real friends. Many of those in government want less corruption, better treatment for workers, fewer mine accidents, a proper public education system, decent public health care. They want a fairer society.

All of this is central to the message of the writers they arrest.

There is one well-established truth tied to these messages: Freedom of expression, while it can guarantee nothing, is nevertheless the key to making reform possible.

This is why a courageous voice like that of Liu needs to be celebrated. The first simple step is to free him.

This article was first published in the Globe and Mail.

John Ralston Saul is president of PEN International.