MCLC: dissent exacts a price

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: dissent exacts a price
***********************************************************

Source: Asia Times 
(2/1/12):http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/NB01Ad02.html

Dissent exacts a different price for Liu
By Emily-Anne Owen 

BEIJING - Liu Xiaobo, the imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has been
placed at the forefront of the fight for human rights in China once again
with a new collection of works published in translation this January.

No Enemies, No Hatred: Selected Essays and Poems (Harvard University
Press), edited by Perry Link, Tienchi Martin-Liao and Liu Xia, features
poems and essays penned by Liu spanning a time period of two decades. The
345-page volume also includes documents citing the claimed "evidence" that
the Beijing courts used to imprison the activist.

Liu, 56, is the first Chinese citizen living in China to win the Nobel
Prize, and is a national embarrassment for the Chinese authorities, who
view his peaceful campaign for democracy as dangerous criminal activity.

In 2009, Liu was handed a handed an 11-year-prison sentence for
"incitement to subvert state power". He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
in 2010, but was barred from attending the event.

In 1989, the veteran activist was imprisoned for over 18 months for his
part in the Tiananmen Square protests. In 1995 he spent a further seven
months in jail, and in 1996 was sent to a labor camp for three years for
"re-education". 

No Enemies, No Hatred comes as China steps up its repression of dissidents
and activists across the country. China's approaching leadership
transition, combined with the upcoming first anniversaries of the
so-called "Jasmine" revolution and Arab Spring, have led to severe
crackdowns. 

The book serves as a potent reminder of the harsh punishments dealt out to
those who oppose the government.

But while No Enemies, No Hatred has garnered critical acclaim abroad,
publishing a book about the Nobel Prize laureate has serious consequences
in China itself. 

This month, a prominent Chinese writer and dissident who is currently
writing Liu's biography, fled to the United States.

Yu Jie, a close friend of Liu's and an outspoken critic of the Chinese
Communist Party, claimed in a protracted statement to have suffered
repeated harassment, house arrest and torture.

Yu, author of a blistering attack on China's premier Wen Jiabao titled
China's Best Actor: Wen Jiabao, left China on January 11 with his family
after over a year of government intimidation.

At a news conference in Washington, Yu said that he was placed under house
arrest in October 2010 following the announcement that Liu had been
awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

The writer also claims to have been detained for four days in December
2010 during which time he was nearly "tortured to death".

According to the 38-year-old Christian, an officer told him: "Right now,
foreigners are awarding Liu Xiaobo the Nobel Peace Prize, humiliating our
party and government. We'll pound you to death to avenge this. As far as
we can tell, there are no more than 200 intellectuals in the country who
oppose the Communist Party and are influential. If the central authorities
think that their rule is facing a crisis, they can capture them all in one
night and bury them alive."

Yu claims to have been abducted and beaten severely by plainclothes
officers the day before the Nobel Prize ceremony. The officers allegedly
stripped, slapped and kicked Yu before threatening to break his fingers,
leaving the writer hospitalized.

"[Plainclothes officials] began beating me in the head and the face
without explanation. They stripped off all my clothes and pushed me,
naked, to the ground, and kicked me maniacally. They also had a camera and
were taking pictures as I was being beaten, saying with glee that they
would post the naked photos online," he said in the statement.

"They forced me to spread out my hands and bent my fingers backwards one
by one. They said, 'You've written many articles attacking the Communist
Party with these hands, so we want to break your fingers one by one'."

China has attempted to delete all mention of Liu Xiaobo's works from the
public eye while concurrently printing state-backed slurs on his
reputation in state media.

Government censorship has left Liu's supporters and contemporary
human-rights campaigners who speak out against abuses by the party
marginalized - and with little choice but to flee, quieten up, or face
lengthy jail terms.

Last July, Liao Yiwu, author of the Tiananmen Square poemMassacre, fled
overland via Vietnam to self-exile in Germany. Since December, three
seasoned dissidents have been sentenced to unusually harsh prison
sentences, with a fourth, the poet Zhu Yufu, charged with subversion late
this month. 

"In China today, outspoken writers and artists who challenge the status
quo of authoritarian one-party rule are increasingly being forced into a
stark choice - prison, exile or intimidated silence," says Phelim Kine, a
senior Asia researcher at the New York-based Human Rights Watch.

"Yu Jie's difficult decision - like that of fellow writer Liao Yiwu - to
go into self-exile highlights how the deepening hostility of the Chinese
government to writers who won't self-censor their works in line with the
official narrative."

Perry Link, professor of comparative literature at the University of
California and an editor and translator of No Enemies, No Hatred,
describes the choice to self-exile as "complex".

Link tells Inter Press Service: "It is a very complex decision of course,
to decide to go into self exile. I am sure for [Yu's] family - his child,
his wife - it feels more secure outside of China.

"The main cost of putting oneself outside in China is cutting off
influence in China. There are a whole list of activists who have fled
abroad and who can now write more freely but have less influence within
China - I am sure Yu Jie realized that when he made the calculation."

But, Link adds, "One reason Liu Xiaobo is admired in his circles is that
he won't leave. He wants to stay. He has made a different decision."

(Inter Press Service)