MCLC: open letter to Xi Jinping

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: perry link <perry.link at ucr.edu>
Subject: open letter to Xi Jinping
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Dear MCLC colleagues,

Each of you is invited to read and to join the undersigned in the
following open letter to Xi Jinping,  To add to your name, just go to
6beijing25 at gmail.com and write it as you like to present it.  Please
also add your institution or affiliation.

Perry Link

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President Xi Jinping
Beijing, China

Mr President

We have learned that our fellow scholars Xu Youyu, Hao Jian, and Hu
Shigen, and civil rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang and writer Liu Di, were
criminally detained for “creating a disturbance in a public place,
causing serious disorder.” The alleged reason for their detention was
that on 3 May they were among the fifteen participants in a “2014
Workshop on Beijing’s June Fourth” that took place in a private
apartment in Beijing.

These detentions raise many disturbing questions. For example, how can a
private meeting “create disturbance in a public place”? These
Citizens were detained because they discussed an event that took place
twenty-five years ago and that had a profound impact on the course of
Chinese history. How can a discussion among scholars, lawyers and writers
at someone’s home be considered a “disturbance”? As you have often
reminded your Japanese counterparts, to be strong, a nation must
confront its past. As scholars who have devoted our lives to the study
of China, we are convinced that this country will only benefit from a
free exchange of ideas that helps to establish historical truth.

Three days after these citizens’ detention, we learned that veteran
journalist Gao Yu was criminally detained for “leaking State
secrets”. She has admitted to having sent a Party document abroad. But,
since the end of the Cultural Revolution, the separation of the state
and the Party in China has been a fundamental principle. How, then, can
A “Party document” be considered a “state” secret?

It is obvious that none of the above-mentioned citizens has committed a
criminal offense. Their detention is an injustice to loyal Chinese
citizens as well as a harm to the image of China at a time when it is
becoming a great power. We therefore ask you respectfully to correct
this mistake, and to free unconditionally the citizens who have been
wrongfully detained.

Sincerely,

Jean-Philippe Béja
Senior Research Fellow at CNRS Paris, CEFC Hong Kong

Michel Bonnin
Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales

Jean-Pierre Cabestan
Baptist University, Hong Kong

Joseph Cheng
City Unversity of Hong Kong

Steven Levine
University of Montana

Perry Link
University of California, Riverside

Andrew J. Nathan
Columbia University

Xiao Qiang
University of California, Berkeley