MCLC: Liu Xiaobo to appeal

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: Liu Xiaobo to appeal
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Source: NYT (11/19/13):
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/20/world/asia/chinese-nobel-winner-appeals-s
ubversion-conviction.html

Chinese Nobel Winner Appealing Subversion Conviction
By CHRIS BUCKLEY

HONG KONG — Liu Xiaobo, the imprisoned Chinese dissident who won the 2010
Nobel Peace Prize, will challenge his 2009 conviction on subversion
charges in court, his lawyer said on Tuesday.

A court in Beijing sentenced Mr. Liu to 11 years in prison in December
2009 after he helped organize Charter 08, a petition calling for
wide-ranging political changes in China that would have amounted to
replacing Communist Party rule with a multiparty democracy.

The peace prize the following year infuriated the Chinese government,
which blamed the Norwegian government for the decision, although the prize
was awarded by an independent committee. Since then, Mr. Liu’s wife, Liu
Xia, has also lived in confinement, kept under informal house arrest by
the police and guards around her apartment in Beijing.

Ms. Liu visited her husband in prison last month and carried his written
request to formally challenge his sentence to his representatives
afterward, Mo Shaoping, a lawyer acting for Mr. Liu, said in a telephone
interview.

“This is requesting that a court retry the case,” Mr. Mo said. “The appeal
here means he doesn’t accept the verdict already in effect that was
reached by the court in the initial and second trials.”

Mr. Mo said he was preparing to submit papers to the Beijing Municipal
High People’s Court contesting the verdict, which found Mr. Liu guilty of
“inciting subversion of state power.” Mr. Mo said he or a colleague also
hoped to visit Mr. Liu, who is in a prison in northeast China.

“The basis for the appeal is the same argument we raised earlier — writing
essays, participating in drafting Charter 08, are all part of a citizen’s
right to freedom of expression,” said Mr. Mo. “When we appeal, they will
have to accept our documents, assess the case, and decide whether to hold
a retrial.”

Mr. Liu’s decision was first reported
<http://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/liu-xiaobo-11182013121554.html> by
Radio Free Asia, a service based in Washington that receives funding from
the United States government.

Mr. Mo would not comment on Mr. Liu’s chances of success. China’s courts
rarely overturn verdicts, and to do so in a politically contentious case
like Mr. Liu’s would be unheard-of. A court rejected an earlier appeal by
Mr. Liu in February 2010.

A writer and literary critic, Mr. Liu, 57, won prominence in the 1980s as
a critic of censorship and political restrictions, and was imprisoned for
a first time for his role in the student-led protests of 1989.

Last Friday, the Communist Party leadership published a program of
economic, social and legal reforms, including plans to abolish
re-education through labor — a form of imprisonment that does not depend
on a trial and conviction. The program also promises to make China’s
courts less susceptible to meddling by local officials.

But there are no signs that these measured changes will bring about a
major political relaxation. The party leadership under President Xi
Jinping has instead overseen a widespread clampdown on political
dissident, criticism and rumors spread on the Internet, and ideological
currents seen as threatening one-party rule.