Independent Chinese PEN Center

For Press Release
8 December 2012

Today is the fourth detention anniversary of Dr. Liu Xiaobo, the former and honorary president of Independent Chinese PEN Centre (ICPC), and two days later it will be the second anniversary of awarding him the Nobel Peace Prize. Gazed by the whole world, the CCP’s 18^th Congress held in Beijing last month has not resulted in any goodwill toward freedom but launched a new series of crackdown since prior to the Congress to repress freedom of expression and violate basic human rights of Chinese people. Not only Liu Xiaobo and other prisoners of conscience have been still in jail, and Liu Xiaobo’s wife Liu Xia, a poet and founding member of ICPC, has been still under house arrest since more the two years ago, but also a young activist Cao Haibo who initiated an online organization Zhenhua Club has been sentenced to 8-year imprisonment in Yunnan Province as well as a dissident writer Li Bifeng has been sentenced to 12-year imprisonment in Sichuan Province, respectively. In recent two months, there have been many forced disappearances, forced travels and illegal house arrest of many dissidents and activists including ICPC members for political “stability”. ICPC expresses its strong protest against these acts of Chinese authorities, and calls on the Chinese authorities to end their persecutions and respect citizens’ basic human rights including freedom of expression guaranteed by the Chinese Constitution and the International Human Rights Conventions, and to release Liu Xiaobo, Liu Xia and all of others under unjustl imprisonments and house arrest immediately and unconditionally. Continue reading →