2014-12-24
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Members of the Hong Kong Alliance hold the group’s annual Christmas card campaign in Hong Kong, Dec. 23, 2014.
RFA
Rights activists are calling for a Christmas card campaign for jailed Chinese dissidents to mark the fifth anniversary of the jailing of Nobel peace laureate Liu Xiaobo.
Liu, 58, a literary critic and former professor, was awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize “for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China” in a decision that infuriated Beijing, which says he has broken Chinese law.
He has been held since 2008 after helping to draft Charter 08, a manifesto calling for sweeping changes in China’s government that was signed by thousands of supporters, and is serving an 11-year prison sentence for “incitement to subvert state power,” handed down on Christmas Day, 2009.
Hong Kong’s Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China called on people around the world to send Christmas cards to Liu and other political prisoners.
“This year we will focus in particular on Liu Xiaobo, [New Citizens’ Movement founder] Xu Zhiyong, as well as all those rights activists in mainland China who were detained for their support of Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement,” the group said in a statement on Wednesday.
Rights groups estimate that more than 100 people were detained for publicly supporting the pro-democracy Occupy Central movement, which ended earlier this week.
“We hope that the Chinese government will adhere to clause 40 of the constitution which says that people have the right to free communication, and allow them to receive Christmas cards and postcards from Hong Kong citizens,” the Alliance said.
“[We also hope that] they will improve their treatment.”
‘Bad year’
Allliance deputy chairman Richard Choi said 2014 had been a bad year for Chinese rights activists.
“The damage done to human rights during the past year has been very serious,” Choi said.
“In particular, we saw the trials of Xu Zhiyong and others in his movement at the beginning of the year,” he said.
“There were also a number of people detained around the 25th anniversary of the June 4, 1989, military crackdown,” he said, citing in particular prominent rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang and outspoken veteran journalist Gao Yu.
“There were also all of those rights activists and workers who worked on behalf of the Umbrella Movement in mainland China,” Choi said. “They have all been the targets of varying degrees of persecution.”
But William Nee, China researcher for the London-based rights group Amnesty International, said Liu himself had recently asked that rights campaigns focus on less well-known prisoners of conscience.
Citing a Facebook post earlier this month by Germany-based activist Liao Yiwu, Nee said Liu had called on the international community to pay more attention to “unnamed victims” of the ruling Chinese Communist Party’s crackdown on dissent.
