9 Dec, 2010, 03.48AM REUTERS
China comes up with peace prize, steps up crackdown
BEIJING: China is conducting a sweeping crackdown on dissent ahead of this week’s awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo, casting the net wide to prevent friends and family attending.
China will award its answer to the Nobel Peace Prize a day before it is bestowed on Liu, giving the newly created “Confucius Peace Prize” to a former Taiwan vice-president.
Liu himself is serving an 11-year jail term for subversion and his wife, Liu Xia is under house arrest. Even family members of little-known dissidents have been prevented from leaving the country.
Lu Yuegang, who lost his job in 2006 at the China Youth Daily following the banning of a supplement for provocative content, said his wife has been stopped from travelling to Hong Kong, where she used to go frequently for business trips.
“Nobody has given a reason. She goes to Hong Kong regularly for work,” Lu told Reuters. “We think it’s probably to do with the Liu Xiaobo issue.”
In China’s frozen northern region of Inner Mongolia, police have detained the wife of one of China’s longest-serving but possibly least well-known political prisoners, Hada, ahead of his expected release on Friday, the same day Liu’s prize is awarded.
Police have pressured Hada’s son Uiles to cut off ties with his parents, promising him “a nice job, beautiful house and even a pretty girlfriend if he agrees”, according to the New York-based Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Centre.
“A number of upcoming sensitive events that will simultaneously take place on December 10, including Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel Prize award, Hada’s release, and the United Nations Human Rights Day celebration, are making the Chinese authorities extremely nervous,” said the group’s Enghebatu Togochog.
Last week, Chinese police prevented prominent artist Ai Weiwei from flying to South Korea on grounds of endangering state security, a move he called “really silly” and directly linked to the peace prize ceremony.
“It just shows the world that China does not respect its own laws,” said Ai, one of China’s most famous contemporary artists whose public comments, activities and art are some of the most flagrantly defiant and loudest forms of speech in China today.
“Some people have accused Liu Xiaobo and the rest of us who have signed Charter 08 of ‘subverting the People’s Republic of China,’” wrote Bao, who remains under tight police surveillance in Beijing after being imprisoned for seven years for sympathising with protesters on Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989.
“But what is a republic? A republic is a form of government that puts the political rights of its citizens above all others,” he wrote. “This is also the purpose of Charter 08. We are resolved to protect the republic, not to subvert her.”
China comes up with peace prize, steps up crackdown
BEIJING: China is conducting a sweeping crackdown on dissent ahead of this week’s awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo, casting the net wide to prevent friends and family attending.
China will award its answer to the Nobel Peace Prize a day before it is bestowed on Liu, giving the newly created “Confucius Peace Prize” to a former Taiwan vice-president.
Liu himself is serving an 11-year jail term for subversion and his wife, Liu Xia is under house arrest. Even family members of little-known dissidents have been prevented from leaving the country.
Lu Yuegang, who lost his job in 2006 at the China Youth Daily following the banning of a supplement for provocative content, said his wife has been stopped from travelling to Hong Kong, where she used to go frequently for business trips.
“Nobody has given a reason. She goes to Hong Kong regularly for work,” Lu told Reuters. “We think it’s probably to do with the Liu Xiaobo issue.”
In China’s frozen northern region of Inner Mongolia, police have detained the wife of one of China’s longest-serving but possibly least well-known political prisoners, Hada, ahead of his expected release on Friday, the same day Liu’s prize is awarded.
Police have pressured Hada’s son Uiles to cut off ties with his parents, promising him “a nice job, beautiful house and even a pretty girlfriend if he agrees”, according to the New York-based Southern Mongolian Human Rights Information Centre.
“A number of upcoming sensitive events that will simultaneously take place on December 10, including Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel Prize award, Hada’s release, and the United Nations Human Rights Day celebration, are making the Chinese authorities extremely nervous,” said the group’s Enghebatu Togochog.
Last week, Chinese police prevented prominent artist Ai Weiwei from flying to South Korea on grounds of endangering state security, a move he called “really silly” and directly linked to the peace prize ceremony.
“It just shows the world that China does not respect its own laws,” said Ai, one of China’s most famous contemporary artists whose public comments, activities and art are some of the most flagrantly defiant and loudest forms of speech in China today.
“Some people have accused Liu Xiaobo and the rest of us who have signed Charter 08 of ‘subverting the People’s Republic of China,’” wrote Bao, who remains under tight police surveillance in Beijing after being imprisoned for seven years for sympathising with protesters on Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989.
“But what is a republic? A republic is a form of government that puts the political rights of its citizens above all others,” he wrote. “This is also the purpose of Charter 08. We are resolved to protect the republic, not to subvert her.”
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