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<\/p>\nBy DIDI KIRSTEN TATLOW MAY 28, 2014 6:00 PM<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Liu Xiaobo.
\nReuters<\/p>\n
The world has not heard from Liu Xiaobo, its only imprisoned Nobel Peace laureate, for a long time.<\/p>\n
Not since his impassioned self-defense in a Beijing court in December 2009, when he declared he had \u201cno enemies and no hatred,\u201d not toward the people who had arrested him, nor the judge who sentenced him on that icy Christmas Day for \u201cincitement to subvert state power\u201d for co-authoring Charter 08, a call for human rights and an end to one-party rule in China.<\/p>\n
But Mr. Liu, a long-term advocate of political liberalization in China who also played a role in negotiating the safe exit of students from Tiananmen Square on the morning of June 4, 1989, as the military moved in to quash the democracy movement, could become eligible for parole in less than two weeks.<\/p>\n
On June 8, according to China\u2019s criminal code \u2014 shortly after the 25th anniversary of the crushing of the Tiananmen protests. June 8 is exactly halfway through Mr. Liu\u2019s 11-year prison term, the point at which parole becomes possible, counting from when he was first detained on Dec. 8, 2008 as Chinese law stipulates.<\/p>\n
But there is a major caveat that makes it unlikely that China\u2019s most prominent political prisoner will be paroled so soon, if ever, despite persistent rumors that the government is keen to release him and send him out of the country, finding his global fame an embarrassment. Parole is only available for prisoners who show \u201cregret\u201d or \u201crecognize their guilt,\u201d Chinese lawyers said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn China, if you admit guilt, then you can apply for parole and you may get out,\u201d said one lawyer familiar with Mr. Liu\u2019s situation. \u201cThat\u2019s a principle here. It\u2019s how things work.\u201d The lawyer asked not to be named for fear of retribution for commenting on such a sensitive political case shortly before the June 4 anniversary.<\/p>\n
Would Mr. Liu \u201cadmit guilt,\u201d or \u201c\u8ba4\u7f6a\u201d (renzui), as it is known in Chinese?<\/p>\n
\u201cBoil a rock. When the rock softens, Liu will be ready to \u2018\u8ba4\u7f6a,\u201d wrote Perry Link, who co-edited \u201cNo Enemies, No Hatred,\u201d a collection of Mr. Liu\u2019s essays and poems published in 2012. Mr. Link used the Chinese characters for \u201cadmit guilt\u201d in the email, adding:<\/p>\n
He might, though, play language games. He has done this in the past. When prosecutors found his counterrevolutionary articles on the Internet and asked him to admit his crimes, he answered \u201cYes, I admit that I wrote those articles.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course he would like to be out of prison. But you are asking (I think) if he would accept parole conditions \u2014 no publishing, no public speeches, accompaniment by plainclothes handlers, etc. My guess is that he would accept plainclothes handlers and would talk to them human-being-to-human-being, and would put up with all the external censorship one finds in China \u2014 editors refusing his pieces, comments deleted from the Internet, etc. \u2014 but would draw the line at self-censorship.<\/p>\n
If the conditions were that he must not TRY to speak, write or meet with others, I think there is no chance he would accept them. I think he would prefer prison to doing that.<\/p>\n
The lawyer familiar with Mr. Liu\u2019s situation said, \u201cLiu Xiaobo has never admitted his guilt, so it won\u2019t be possible for him to get out now.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf it were medical parole, that would be a different matter,\u201d the lawyer said, but \u201chis health is O.K.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Liu\u2019s wife, Liu Xia, is permitted to see him once a month.<\/p>\n
Those meetings are conducted through a thick pane of glass with the two unable to touch, speaking through a telephone while being watched by guards, said Tienchi Martin-Liao, a co-editor of \u201cNo Enemies, No Hatred\u201d and the president of the Independent Chinese PEN Center \u2014 a job Mr. Liu once held \u2014 who is in regular phone contact with Ms. Liu, the third editor on the project.<\/p>\n
Ms. Liu\u2019s mental state following months of confinement to her home in Beijing, punishment for her husband\u2019s actions, has been precarious. That is no longer the case, Ms. Martin-Liao, who is based in Germany, said in a phone interview. The pending publication overseas of a collection of her poems has helped, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe is quite O.K. and even sometimes cheerful,\u201d Ms. Martin-Liao said. \u201cWe are not that worried. She is allowed not only to meet with her parents, but to go to a restaurant in Beijing. She can meet friends \u2014 not many, one or two,\u201d and recently celebrated her birthday, she said. However Ms. Liu is followed and observed by security agents.<\/p>\n
Contributing to Ms. Liu\u2019s improvement were reports from several sources that her brother, Liu Hui, who was sentenced to 11 years in jail for financial fraud last year on what family members and friends said were trumped-up charges, had been released on medical parole. The reports could not be independently confirmed.<\/p>\n
No one knows exactly how Liu Xiaobo was coping in prison, said Ms. Martin-Liao, but he was believed to be well treated, with a small garden to tend, access to some books and able to do sports.<\/p>\n
Referring to Ms. Liu\u2019s monthly visits with her husband, the lawyer familiar with Mr. Liu\u2019s situation said, \u201cWe don\u2019t know how his spirits are, as there are a lot of things they can\u2019t talk about on these visits.\u201d He said he believed Ms. Liu had visited her husband in May as usual, despite the currently tense atmosphere ahead of the Tiananmen anniversary. The visits generally take place between the 22nd and 24th day of the month, he said.<\/p>\n
The Tiananmen protest movement changed Mr. Liu, who had rushed back to China from a position as visiting scholar at Columbia University to be part of it. Twenty-one years and several incarcerations later, he was honored with the Nobel Peace Prize, \u201cfor his long and nonviolent struggle for fundamental human rights in China,\u201d according to Nobelprize.org, the official Nobel website.<\/p>\n
\u201cI dedicate this prize to all those lost souls who have sacrificed their lives in nonviolent struggle for peace, democracy and freedom,\u201d he said when told of the award in jail.<\/p>\n
Mr. Liu would be very reluctant to leave China if that were a condition of parole, Ms. Martin-Liao said.<\/p>\n
He may have in mind the words of another Nobel Peace laureate: Carl von Ossietzky, a journalist and pacifist who was awarded the prize in 1936, after being jailed by the Nazis in Germany.<\/p>\n
\u201cA man speaks with a hollow voice from across the border,\u201d the Nobel wrote, citing Mr. von Ossietzky in 1933, when the Nazis came to power, on why he did not seek exile despite the danger. Mr. von Ossietzky died in 1938 of illness while in custody.<\/p>\n
A third Nobel Peace laureate who was awarded the prize while in detention, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, was released from house arrest in Myanmar in 2010. She may even visit Beijing soon.<\/p>\n
From http:\/\/sinosphere.blogs.nytimes.com\/2014\/05\/28\/nobel-laureates-release-from-prison-hinges-on-his-regret\/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&_r=1&<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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