Liu Xia and supporters of Liu Xiaobo -
The wife and supporters of Nobel Peace Prize winner, Liu Xiaobo, face oppression in China.
We are extremely concerned about the recent crack down on Chinese human rights defenders who were celebrating the award of the 2010 Nobel Peace Price to Dr Liu Xiaobo. Since the Nobel Committee announced its decision in October, Liu’s his wife, Liu Xia, a photographer and poet, has been held under de facto house arrest by Chinese authorities, restricted from meeting the media or her friends.
Also since the announcement of the Prize, writers, lawyers and human rights activists throughout China have been summoned, detained, house-arrested or forced to return to home regions. So far, over one hundred of individuals have suffered various forms of unlawful infringements due to their support of Liu’s freedom and his Prize. Many of these individuals are members of Independent Chinese PEN Centre (ICPC).
We are particularly concerned about the following cases:
Wang Lihong and Wu Gan were detained in Beijing for eight days from 8 October 2010 for a celebration party of Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel Peace Prize. Wang is stil under house arrest while Wu has been deported to his origin in Shaanxi Province for close surveillance.
ICPC Honorary Directors Prof. Ding Zilin and her husband Prof. Jiang Peikun, leaders of the democracy movement “Tiananmen Mothers” have been under de factor house arrest in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province since the same day, and their telephone has been cut off.
ICPC Board Member Jiang Qisheng and its former Vice President Yu Jie have been under house arrest with their telephones cut off since late October.
ICPC Honorary Director Gao Yu, member Liu Di and several others have been under house arrest for more than four weeks.
ICPC member Li Hai was taken away by the police when meeting his friends on October 30, and has been incommunicado since then.
In the afternoon of October 27, Hua Ze, a former director of documentaries at CCTV, freelance journalist and human rights defender, was hooded and abducted in Beijing, detained for three days before she was deported to her original province of Jiangxi. She has been incommunicado since then.
Sydney PEN believes that these oppressive actions by the Chinese authorities have been made with the sole purpose of punishing and persecuting those who were peacefully celebrating and supporting the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo. We fear that Guo Xianling and others including those mentioned here may become the victims of a new round of literary inquisition, and that the situations of those such as Liu Xia and Ding Zilin who are held incommunicado under house arrest may be worsening.
Print, sign and post our letters to Prime Minister Julia Gillard, and Ambassador to China Zhang Junsai.