TrialBriefs.com
Analyzing Legal Cases and Issues which Impact You
March, 2010
KNOW THIS:
China’s Human Rights Offenses as Offensive as any other Government’s
December 31, 2009
Since
warning China in November that the international community will not
tolerate continued violations of Chinese citizens’ basic human rights,
President Obama has chosen not to address Beijing’s renewed hard-line
approach to silencing prominent citizen critics. Sadly, other western
leaders and most western media outlets have followed suit.
In October, The Know Something
Project launched a series
on Freedom of Expression with a review
of events involving Chinese writers not only deterred from attending the
2009 Frankfurt Book Fair, but intimidated on a regular basis for voicing
their views regarding Chinese government policies.
Prior to President Obama’s
state visit to China, the PEN American Center of the International PEN
literary and human rights organization sent the president a letter
requesting his intervention in the cases of more than 40 writers
imprisoned in China. The letter cited in particular a prominent,
internationally recognized poet and scholar who taught at Columbia
University until leaving the U.S. to help organize Tianenmen Square
protests in 1989, 54-year-old Liu
Xiaobo.
Liu Xiaobo was detained last
December on the eve of the publication of Charter
08, a document that calls for political and human rights reforms and
has been signed by thousands of people throughout China. Liu Xiaobo
reportedly helped organize the writing of the open letter to the Chinese
government, as well as the solicitation of signatures to the document.
After six months of “residential surveillance” while evidence was
gathered against him, Liu Xiaobo was arrested in June.
On Christmas, Liu Xiaobo was sentenced to 11 years in prison and two years “deprivation of political rights” on charges of subversion.
On Christmas, Liu Xiaobo was sentenced to 11 years in prison and two years “deprivation of political rights” on charges of subversion.
While articles about Liu
Xiaobo’s arrest, very brief trial, and recent sentencing have appeared
in the New
York Times and Los
Angeles Times, the Obama administration has remained relatively
silent regarding this case. On December 14, the U.S. State Department
joined the European Union in calling for Liu Xiaobo’s release, and
immediately following the activist’s sentencing a State Department
spokesperson said Liu’s treatment is “uncharacteristic of a great
country.”
We at The Know Something Project believe our own
government’s failure to speak out much more strongly against basic
human rights violations in China is also “uncharacteristic of a great
country.”
In the introduction to our
series on Freedom of Expression, we stated: “…the fact China is
guilty of a long list of human rights abuses does not seem to diminish
U.S. enthusiasm for involvement with it as a powerful partner…or U.S.
efforts to ignore instances in which Chinese citizens are mistreated by
their own government.”
The case of Liu Xiaobo makes it clear that Chinese
governing powers are determined to deny basic freedoms to their
citizens, the same freedoms young American soldiers have been charged to
defend in other countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan. Why is the
Chinese government seemingly immune from similar intervention when it
continues to commit crimes against its own citizenry? Why do the Obama
administration, other leaders of western nations, and our mainstream
media continue to ignore these injustices? Wouldn’t it help oppressed
people…and a government striving to succeed in the 21st century…to
press Beijing to accept and pursue what is right?
As Liu Xiaobo and others behind the writing of Charter 08
so eloquently put it:
“Where will China head in the 21st century? Continue a
‘modernization’ under…authoritarian rule? Or recognize universal
values, assimilate into the mainstream civilization, and build a
democratic political system? This is a major decision that cannot be
avoided.”
—Sherry
Seiber
US Supreme Court website click:
|
|
