Press Release (ICPC-4-ENG002)
October 15, 2009
China: PEN Member LI Jianhong Blocked from Returning Home
Independent Chinese PEN Centre (ICPC) is outraged to learn that Miss Li Jianhong, an ICPC member and Shanghai-based writer, was blocked from entering China Mainland in Shenzhen at around 11am this morning. After being held for about four hours, Li was sent back to the immigration office in Hong Kong where she arrived from Sweden 4 days ago.
According to Li, the mainland police in Shenzhen didn’t interrogate her but searched her luggage and confiscated eight books, including one on Charter 08.
Earlier this year, Li, who was serving as the “Writer of Residence” of Stockholm City in Sweden since last April, applied to extend her Chinese passport, which is going to expire in late October. But the Chinese Embassy in Sweden rejected her application. In order to return to China with a valid passport, she had to finish her programme earlier and went to Hong Kong on October 10, 2009, and planned to return home in Shanghai later. Patrick Kar-wai Poon, Vice-president of the ICPC, received Li’s phone call at 10:55am today, saying that she was blocked at the checkpoint and then the telephone line was immediately cut off. Li was only able to call us at around 4pm.
Li is currently the ICPC’s Cocumentation Secretary and members of ICPC’s Writers in Prison Committee (WiPC) and Network Working Committee, as well as a member of ICPC’s former Women Writers Committee. She was the recipient of ICPCs Lin Zhao Memorial Prize in 2007 and one of the three persecuted women writers lauded by the International PEN’s Writers inPrison Committee and Women Writers Committee during the International Women’s Day in 2008. She was appointed the Secretary-general of ICPC’s 4th Congress of Membership Assembly, which was just closed in early October, 2009.
As the freedom of expression in China is deteriorating, many writers and journalists, including ICPC Honorary President r. Liu Xiaobo and four other members, have been imprisoned because of their writings and speeches. ICPC is seriously concerned that Li was blocked from returning to China apparently because of her criticism against the government.
Background information
Li Jianhong (penname: Xiaoqiao), native of Pengpu, Anhui province, received a master’s degree in Western Europe and North America studies from the East China Normal University in Shanghai in 1994. She has been a collage teacher, management staff of foreign-invested companies, business reporter and securities analyst. She co-founded an independent Chinese website “Enlightenment Forum” with friends in 2002. In 2004, the management staff and webmaster of the website was later under investigation and the website shut down during the 15th anniversary of the June 4 Massacre. She has been persecuted by the Shanghai authorities since then. She was under police surveillance, harassments, summons, restrictions of her freedom of speech, actions and movement. She had been under house arrest and short detention for many times. She was deprived her right to work and was forced to become an independent freelancer. With the recommendation by ICPC and International PENs WiPC and coordination of the Norway-based International Cities of Refuge Network (ICORN), Stockholm City
government in Sweden invited her to be the “Writer of Residence” in 2008, originally for one year and later extended for six months. After several months of negotiation with the Shangai police, Li was escorted by the national security police of the Pudong District in Shanghai to the airport and left for Stockholm on April 28, 2008. After Li arrived in Sweden, she was received by the staff of the Cultural Department of Stockholm City government and attended the activities organized by Swedish PEN Center. An anthology of her writings “Seawind” was published in Hong Kong in the same year.
The Independent Chiese PEN is among 145 member centers of the International PEN, the oldest human rights organisation and international literary organisation. 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, contact
Dr. Yu Zhang
Executive Secretary & WiPC Coordinator
Independent Chinese PEN Center (ICPC)
Tel: +46-8-50022792
Email: [email protected]