{"id":39724,"date":"2014-05-14T20:49:00","date_gmt":"2014-05-14T20:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/127.0.0.1:10081\/?p=39724 "},"modified":"2014-05-14T20:49:00","modified_gmt":"2014-05-14T20:49:00","slug":"39724-revision-v1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/?p=39724","title":{"rendered":"An Open letter to Xi Jinping regarding illegal detention of Chinese scholars"},"content":{"rendered":"
TIANANMEN INITIATIVE PROJECT <\/strong><\/div>

<\/strong><\/div>
\u7eaa\u5ff5”\u516d\u56db” 25\u5468\u5e74\u5021\u8bae<\/strong><\/div>

<\/strong><\/div>
An Open letter to Xi Jinping regarding illegal detention of Chinese scholars<\/strong><\/div>

<\/strong><\/div>
05\/13\/2014<\/strong><\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div>
President Xi Jinping<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
Mr President:<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
We have learned that our fellow scholars Xu Youyu, Hao Jian, and Hu Shigen, and civil rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang and writer Liu Di, were criminally detained for “creating a disturbance in a public place, causing serious disorder”. The alleged reason for their detention was that on 3 May they were among the fifteen participants in a  “ 2014 Workshop on Beijing’s June Fourth” that took place in a private apartment in Beijing.<\/div>
<\/div>
 <\/div>
These detentions raise many disturbing questions. For example, how can a private meeting “create disturbance in a public place”?  These citizens were detained because they discussed an event that took place twenty-five years ago and that had a profound impact on the course of Chinese history.  How can a discussion among scholars, lawyers and writers at someone’s home be considered a “disturbance”?  As you have often reminded your Japanese counterparts, to be strong, a nation must confront its past. As scholars who have devoted our lives to the study of China, we are convinced that this country will only benefit from a free exchange of ideas that helps to establish historical truth.<\/div>
<\/div>
 <\/div>
Three days after these citizens’ detention, we learned that veteran journalist Gao Yu was criminally detained for “leaking State secrets.”  She has admitted to having sent a Party document abroad. But, since the end of the Cultural Revolution, the separation of the state and the Party in China has been a fundamental principle.  How, then, can a  “Party document” be considered a “state” secret ?<\/div>
<\/div>
 <\/div>
It is obvious that none of the above-mentioned citizens has committed a criminal offense. Their detention is an injustice to loyal Chinese citizens as well as a harm to the image of China at a time when it is becoming a great power. We therefore ask you respectfully to correct this mistake, and to free unconditionally the citizens who have been wrongfully detained.<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
Jean-Philippe Béja<\/div>
Senior Research Fellow at CNRS Paris, CEFC Hong Kong<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
Joseph Cheng<\/div>
Professor, City University, Hong Kong<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
Michel Bonnin<\/div>
Professor, EHESS, Paris<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
Jean-Pierre Cabestan<\/div>
Professor, Baptist University, Hong Kong<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
Steven Levine<\/div>
University of Montana<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
Perry Link<\/div>
University of California, Riverside<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
Andrew Nathan, <\/div>
Professor, Columbia University, New York<\/div>
 <\/div>
<\/div>
Xiao Qiang<\/div>
Berkeley<\/div>
 <\/div>
 <\/div>Continue reading the <\/span>original article<\/strong><\/a>.<\/span>
 <\/div>
<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

<div>It is obvious that none of the above-mentioned citizens has committed a criminal offense. Their detention is an injustice to loyal Chinese citizens as well as a harm to the image of China at a time when it is becoming a great power. We therefore ask you respectfully to correct this mistake, and to free unconditionally the citizens who have been wrongfully detained.<\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ChinaHumanRights","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39724\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/minzhuzhongguo.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}