An Awarding Ceremony with No Appearance of Awardees
ICPC Holds Its Annual Event in Hong Kong
(Hong Kong, 22 March 2010) Independent Chinese PEN Center (ICPC) held its annual event for presenting its 2009 awards, Freedom to Write Award, Lin Zhao Memorial Award and Writers in Prison Award, with a Seminar on “Literature and Civil Society” in Hong Kong in Saturday afternoon. Over 60 participants, including the representatives from ICPC, Hong Kong Chinese PEN and PEN America Centers, were invited to the event, from Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Sichuan and Guangdong in China mainland, and also from Taiwan, USA, Russia and Australia, to join the local writers, journalists and other guests in Hong Kong. However, none of three awardees could appear to receive their honors as all of them remained no freedom of movement in China mainland, one has still been serving his lengthy sentence in prison while other two said that there was no convince for them to travel to Hong Kong.
At 15:00 on Saturday, the event started at its venue in eTech Centre, Hong Kong. Mr. Jin Zhong, Editor-in- Chief of Open magazine, was invited to act as the moderator for the awarding ceremony, while Mr. Larry Siems, Director of Freedom to Write and International Projects of New York-based PEN America Center as a guest of honor to present the awards. Mr. Meng Lang, poet and the Coordinator of ICPCs Freedom to Write Committee, served to chair the seminar session, while Mr. Leung Man Tao, a renowned Hong Kong-based social commentator and TV critic, Mr. Chang Tieh Chi, a Taiwanese cultural writer and columnist, were the keynote speakers. ICPCs Vice-presidents Mr. Patrick Poon and Ms. Qi Jiazhen and two of WiPC members Ms. Cai Yongmei and Mr. Wu Yisan were responsible for planning and coordination of the event. Near 20 of ICPC members attended the events, including Mr. Wu Wei, Coordinator of its Internet Working Committee, Mr. Jiang Bo, its Deputy Secretary-General, both from China mainland, Mr. Sun Yue, a Russia-based WiPC member as well as the member of Russian PEN Center. Among the attendants, there were also the members of Hong Kong Chinese PEN Center, including its Secretary-General Mr. Liu Bo-Quan, Board member Mr. Li Da-Li, and the members Ms. Liao Shu-lan, Mr. Jimmy So, etc.
Mr. Jin Zhong declared the opening of the event with its agenda, and presented the awardees, Mr. Wang Jianhui for 7th Freedom to Write Award, Ms. Tsering Woeser for 5th Lin Zhao Memorial Award and Dr. Xu Zerong for 4th Writers in Prison Award.
Wang Jianhui, born in Fujian Province in 1966, personally experienced the historical events in 1989, which did not only let him getting through the sufferings, but also laid a keynote for his subsequent writings. For 20 years, he has consistently kept a low profile but written in a style of witness that is extremely important to this era. He has been taking a literary route of the marginal people with hardship but seeking no eminency, and coming down in one continuous line of the underground literary traditions that has been intermittent but still inheriting with its torch for last six decades. Many of his works have been circulated among the people only through underground printing at his own expenses, and interested by not many of the rebels and explorers who love the words and ideas, including: “A Person of Circumstances” and “A Prisoners Hunting Notes”, “Fourteen Years”, “Ideas in Human Would”, Difference between Urban and Rural Areas “, etc. His novel “China Map”, one of his most important works has to be published overseas due to the censorship system in China. The book describes the emergence and disillusion of an absurd ideal, and demonstrates the broad background of a tragic time and the tragic fate of a person. It has made an important impact in the sphere of dissident ideas. As a senior member of Independent Chinese PEN Center, almost all of his works have been firstly publishedat its e-journal, “Freedom to Write”. Wang Jianhuis writings have demonstrated the true features and valuable traditions of the underground literature that have been artificially screened and distorted within China Mainland.
Tsering Woeser, an excellent Tibetan writer and poet, was born in Lhasa in 1966, and grew up in Tibetan and Han Chinese areas in Sichuan Province. She had been an editor of Tibet Literature in Lhasa since 1990. Over past 20 years of her writing and editing career, she has been paying constant attention to the status and fate of Tibetan people and their culture, and also actively promoting and joining the exchanges and dialogues between Tibetan and Han Chinese writers and poets completely based on free mind and expression. In 2003, her book of essays, “Notes on Tibet” that had been officially published, was banned, and she was purged persecuted by the Chinese authorities, thus having lost her job. Particularly after Lhasa incident in the 2008, Woeser has borne a greater pressure than Chinese dissident writer, and still insisted on writing to disclose the truth about Tibet, with remarkable achievement. Since 2003, she has published overseas as many as eight of books on Tibet. Among them, “Killing and Plunder”, “Tibet Memories”, “Notes on Tibet” and “Invisible Tibet” have made widespread impacts, and her works have also been of concern to the international cultural community. Woesers writing and practice has truly demonstrated the Lin Zhaos spirit of freedom and manifest its renaissance in the new century.
Dr. Xu Zerong, anglicized as Dr. David Tsui, was born in Wuhan in 1955. As an independent scholar upholding the liberal ideas, he had long been engaged in the study of international relations, and published theses on a number of important issues, including Chinese governments participation in Korean War and its support for the armed revolutionary movements in Southeast Asian countries. Dissecting the fogs and digging the truth, his works were very influential. Beside writing and research, Dr. Xu also presided over a publishing house (Asia Science Press) in Hong Kong, and two magazines (Chinese Social Science Quarterly and Asian Review), which had provided the scholars and intellectuals in China and overseas with the platforms for free expression, and published a number of substantial articles and monographs. In May 1999, Xu got PhD in politic science at St Antony’s College, Oxford University, in June was appointed associate professor at Guangzhou Academy of Social Sciences, and in July returned to Guangzhou from Hong Kong where he was permanent resident. In June of the following year, he was unexpectedly taken by the police into a secret detention, and then in December 2001 convicted for “illegally providing intelligence and engaging in illegal publication” and sentenced to 13 years imprisonment, 3 years deprivation of political rights and a fine of 50,000 CNY. It has been believed that the real causes that Chinese government arrested and sentenced him were that his publication had touched the forbidden zone of the subjects. Dr. Xus case deeply shocked many at home and overseas. Not only the teachers and students at Oxford University made appeal to the international community, but also over 300 world-renowned scholars cosigned a petition urging the Chinese government to respect the common sense of academic studies and resuming Dr. Xus innocence for his freedom. It has been learnt that in prison Dr. Xu has been still upholding his quality of a scholar, and insisting on his study and writing, including an outline of the critique of Marxism that had been sent out. Dr. Xu Zerong has made outstanding contributions for upholding the academic independence and developing the free expression and free press, but also paid a heavy price for them.
Mr. Larry Siems spoke on behalf of PEN America Center for expressing its members supports and respects to their colleagues of ICPC who had been efending freedom of expression in China, paying their tributes to the honorees who were unfortunately unable to be present. Instead, three of ICPC members Mr. Wu Wei, Ms. Qi Jiazhe
n, and Mr. Liu Jingsheng, a formal writer in prison, were appointed to receive the awards and read their statements of thanks on their behalves, respectively.
Then, a record of the statement by Mrs. Liu Xia, wife of ICPC Honorary President Dr. Liu Xiaobo who is severing his 11 years sentence in prison, was displayed for presenting her greetings to the event and congratulations to the awardees. In her statement, she added:
“Xiaobo has been severely sentenced for his writings and opinions. Xiaobo and I have be aware of that PEN have been very much concerned about his case, and PEN America Center has made various efforts to support and rescue him or more than a year. We are very grateful. I know that my friends wanted to learn about Xiaobos situation. Now, I have received very little information and may share it with you. In 10th of March, I called the police and said that it should be the time to send some money for Xiaobos living expenses and meet him again. But no respond is heard up to date. Xiaobo is still in the detention center. I’m folding his clothes well into the bags. I know that it will be a long time a head. I trust in Xiaobo, and so I am supporting him in my way. Xiaobo, if 11 years later, just saw me visiting him in prison who could only talk about him, would surely be sad. What I want to do is to spend the unusual days as usual, using poetry to speak, paint to express, and photography to show love. Finally, Xiaobo and I once again thank our friends and wish the following seminar success. ”
The Independent Chinese PEN Center 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 worldwide 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,
or contact:
Dr. Yu Zhang
Executive Secretary and WiPC Coordinator
Independent Chinese PEN Center (ICPC)
Tel: +46-8-50022792
Email: [email protected],[email protected]