By Humanitarian China and China Change, published: April 26, 2015
Humanitarian China will match your donation, as it did in the Ilham Tohti drive, and send twice as much as it receives to the family of Gao Yu.
A file photo of Chinese journalist Gao Yu speaking at a press conference in Hong Kong. AFP via RFA http://www.rfa.org/english/commentaries/baotong/detention-03302015110907.html
On April 17, Beijing Municipal Third Intermediary People’s Court sentenced 71-year-old independent Chinese journalist Gao Yu (高瑜) to 7 years in prison for “leaking state secrets to foreign contacts,” provoking a domestic and international outcry and condemnation. The state secrets in question are the infamous Document No. 9 of the Chinese Communist Party that seeks to prohibit discussions in China of constitutional democracy, universal values, civil society, ideas of free market economy, press freedom, historical errors of the Party, and the ills of socialism with Chinese characteristics. These are known as the Seven Don’t Mentions. The barbaric nature of this document is apparent, and any principled journalist or citizen should reveal it and oppose it. As a matter of fact, long before Gao Yu, the document had been widely talked about online and offline, inside and outside of China. Such a Party document, aimed at handcuffing the otherwise vibrant Chinese society, has no basis to constitute a “state secret.”
However, in dictatorial China where the rule of law is but a prop, what is, or is not, a state secret is arbitrarily decided by the Party. But even if this document is a secret, the prosecutors had no evidence to prove that Gao Yu passed it on to overseas contacts, and Gao Yu was convicted based on the “public confessions” she had made under duress on CCTV. As such, the sentence of Gao Yu is clearly a reprisal against a courageous journalist and freedom of the press. And it is a redoubled provocation against the universal concept of justice, and part of Xi Jinping’s systematic suppression of the press, the internet, the dissent, and the civil society.
Gao Yu was born in Chongqing in 1944 and graduated from the Chinese Language Department of Renmin University of China in 1967. She became a journalist with the state-owned China News in 1980, and in 1988, she became the deputy editor-in-chief of the Economics Weekly (《經濟學周報》), a liberal-leaning paper that was shut down after the Tiananmen Movement in 1989. This is Gao Yu’s third time in jail. She was secretly detained on June 3rd, 1989, for 450 days. In November, 1994, because of her writings for the Mirror magazine in Hong Kong, she was sentenced by Beijing Municipal Intermediary Court to 6 years in prison for “leaking state secrets.”
As one of the few fearless independent journalists in China, Gao Yu has won broad international recognition. She was awarded the Golden Pen of Freedom Award by the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers in 1995. The international Women’s Media Foundation twice awarded Gao Yu the Courage in Journalism Award in 1995 and 2006. And, she was the first laureate (1997) of UNESCO’s annual World Press Freedom Prize.
Gao Yu suffers from hypertension, heart disease, and Meniere’s disease. Since losing her job in the state system, she has depended on her reporting for a living that’s too often constrained. She has had only minimal medical insurance, and has no pension or welfare benefits. Gao Yu is in urgent need of help to relieve her of financial difficulties so that she can receive adequate and effective treatment and nutrition (in China’s prisons, relatives and friends must make deposits for prisoners so that the latter can purchase food and supplies that are often overpriced).
Out of humanitarian considerations, Humanitarian China and China Change are simultaneously launching this joint donation drive for Gao Yu. Humanitarian China, founded by Zhou Fengsuo (周鋒鎖) and friends in 2007, is a small non-profit charity in the Bay Area in California. It has for years devoted to helping struggling prisoners of conscience and their families with small relief funds. In 2014, Humanitarian China provided relief for nearly 100 people, and its donation drive for the Uighur scholar Ilham Tohti garnered a total of more than $10,000 and the funds were delivered to Ilham’s family. ChinaChange.org was launched on June 4th, 2013, an English-language website dedicated to reporting on human rights, rule of law, and civil society in China. The website has translated multiple articles by Gao Yu, and her article Xi Jinping the Man was the first to unveil what kind of leader Xi Jinping is in January, 2013. It is one of the most read posts on this website.
But your contribution is more than just humanitarian. It is also a token of opposition to political tyranny in China.
Humanitarian China will match your donation, as it did in the Ilham Tohti drive, and send twice as much as it receives to the family of Gao Yu.
You may choose check, credit card, or PayPal to make a donation. You can also make a completely anonymous contribution through a secure third party. Please visit http://h-china.org/donation/ for details.
The donation drive will end on June 4th, 2015. We thank you for your kindness and generosity.
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