For Press Release
December 10, 2009
ICPC Strongly Protests Beijing’s Recent Moves to Severely Punish Liu Xiaobo
Independent Chinese PEN Centre (ICPC) has issued a Human Rights Day statement today to express its outrage against Beijing authorities for their recent moves toward the criminal prosecution and severe sentence for Dr. Liu Xiaobo, its Honorary President, calling on international and domestic communities to urge Chinese regime to correct such an injustice and release Dr. Liu immediately and unconditionally.
The statement goes as follow:
ICPC is outraged to have learnt that the Beijing Public Security Bureau submitted its Prosecution Recommendation of Dr. Liu Xiaobo’s case to the Beijing Municipal People’s Procuratorate last week, in which it was alleged under suspicion for the offence of “inciting subversion of state power” that “Liu Xiaobo had drafted Charter 08 together with others, clamouring to overthrow the socialist system, as his major crimes” to be prosecuted for a severe sentence. ICPC strongly protests this move and calls on international and domestic communities once again to urge Chinese regime to correct such an injustice as it is based on the abuse of evil laws as literary inquisition to flagrantly violate of the freedom of expression, and release Liu Xiaobo immediately and unconditionally.
Dr. Liu Xiaobo, an internationally-recognized literary critic and political commentator as well as ICPC’s former and Honorary President, has always upheld the principles of peace and rationality for China’s human rights improvement and democratization advancement through his writings unceasingly. He was taken away from his home raided by the Beijing police on December 8, 2008, on the eve of Human Rights Day, for his initiating and drafting Charter 08. He had been held for six and a half months under “residential surveillance” abused illegally by the police at an unknown location before he was formally arrested on June 23. He has been held until now after the police extended deadline for investigation thrice. It is particular outraged that Beijing Municipal People’s Procuratorate has obviously abused Articles 126 and 127 of “Criminal Procedure Law of People’s Republic of China” to have approved the extensions for investigation by taking Dr. Liu Xiaobo as a suspect at least in “the grave and complex cases that involve various quarters and for which it is difficult to obtain evidence” and “who may be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of ten years at least” , and so attempting to prosecute him toward a severe sentence for crimes of opinion.
It is well known that Charter 08 is a manifesto calling for bold reforms promoting democracy and human rights in China. Its pacific temper, rationality and constructiveness have earned more and more approval in China and abroad. More than 10,000 Chinese citizens have signed Charter 08. It is once again a bad case of literary inquisition that the Prosecution Recommendation by Beijing Public Security Bureau take this document as the main evidence to charge Liu Xiaobo with “inciting subversion of state power”, which is a typical example of that he who would hang his dog gives out first that it is mad.
ICPC issued an awarding statement on Human Rights Day last years that commented , “The offence of inciting subversion of state power defined by Article 105 (2) of Criminal Law of People’s Republic of China, is a major evil law in China that has created the contemporary literary inquisition. Since China revised its Criminal Law in 1997 when renaming the offence of counter-revolutionary propaganda and incitement to that of inciting subversion of state power, the contemporary literary inquisition has neither disappeared with the abolition of counter-revolutionary offences, nor restrained due to the Chinese governments signature of UNs International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights a year later, but the doors of prisons have been opened even wider as this evil law has made even easier abuse of severe sentences. Hundreds of people have been imprisoned and sentenced for the offence of inciting subversion of state power. Dr. Liu Xiaobo, who participated in drafting this statement just a few days before his detention has been held for suspicion of the same offence and who is now facing the prosecution toward a severe sentence, is obviously the most recent victim of this evil law, but also one of the warriors who has been challenging the contemporary literary inquisition. ICPC reaffirms this stand and calls on international and domestic communities to press Chinese authorities for immediate and unconditional release of Dr. Liu Xiaobo, for abolishing this evil law to release ICPC members Shi Tao, Yang Tianshui, Li Hong, Du Daobin, Zhang Lin and other writers imprisoned ASAP, thus terminating the contemporary literary inquisition.
The Independent Chinese PEN is among 145 member centers of the International PEN, the oldest human rights organization and international literary organization. It aims to protect Chinese writers’ freedom of speech and freedom to write worldwise and advocates for the rights of Chinese writers and journalists who are imprisoned, threatened, persecuted or harassed. For more information on ICPC’s work, please visit https://www.chinesepen.org/old-posts.