(26 January 2014)
Independent Chinese PEN Center (ICPC) protests in the strongest terms against sentencing Mr. Xu Zhiyong, its honorable member and Lin Zhao Memorial Award Laureate for 2013, and the initiator of New Citizens’ Movement, to four years imprisonment for “gathering crowds to disrupt public order” announced today by the First People’s Intermediate Court of Beijing. ICPC believes that this verdict, based solely on accounting six small-scale New Citizens’ Movement’s street demonstration and protest activities as being organized, planned and incited by Xu Zhiyong, has completely violated the basic human rights to the freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration, guaranteed to citizens by Article 35 of China’s Constitution and by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) which China signed in 1998, and is simply another serious political and judicial persecution in reality. ICPC therefore calls on organizations in China and abroad to urge the Chinese authorities to rectify as soon as possible this miscarriage of justice, and release immediately and unconditionally Mr. Xu Zhiyong and all of those imprisoned for peaceful exercises of their civil rights. Continue reading →
Independent Chinese PEN Center is seriously concerned about the reports of criminal detention of Ilham Tohti, a member of Uyghur PEN and associate professor of economics at the Central University for Nationalities in Beijing, and fears that he has been retaliated for his criticizing remarks. ICPC calls on the government to restitute as soon as possible his personal freedom, freedom of expression and other basic rights, and release all of those imprisoned for their words, including ICPC former and honorary president Dr. Liu Xiaobo. Continue reading