MCLC: London Book Fair criticized (15,16)

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: chris lupke (lupke at wsu.edu)
Subject: London Book Fair criticized (15)
***********************************************************

I just want to add a brief footnote to Scott Savitt's most recent email.
He states: "i learned about beijing through the friendship and generosity
of writers like xi chuan, bei ling, ma jian, ai weiwei, all (except xi
chuan) who have paid dearly for their words."

Actually, Xi Chuan also paid dearly in the post-Tiananmen fallout, just
not politically. Two of his best friends died during those heady days, and
if one reads his poetry carefully, especially from the first half of the
1990s, one can clearly detect a profound desolation in it that resulted
directly from this deep loss. Of course, he neither lost his freedom nor
life, but that two close friends died during that period did take an
emotional toll on him. No question about it.

Christopher Lupke

===========================================================

From: paul mooney (pjmooney at me.com)
Subject: London Book Fair criticized (16)

Thanks to Scott Savitt for posting Bei Ling's prison essay. I'm shocked
that Michelle thinks that this essay is somehow "in the past" or that it
makes him unreliable in any way. His story is being repeated daily here in
China. I've been living in China as a reporter since 1994, 17 consecutive
years, and things are the worst since I was here in 1989. This is not Tony
Blair's England.

I don't know when Bei Ling was detained and abused, but this very thing is
going on today. Last year I wrote an article about Chinese lawyers and
dissidents who had hoods thrown over their heads by non-uniform people who
kidnapped them illegally and held them for anywhere from days to
months--this is a violation of China's own laws. These people, some of
China's best and brightest, were brutally treated in a way not much
different than what Bei Ling describes. It's not history, it's happening
today. With my story I made a table that listed some 16 prominent lawyers,
writers, dissidents who were treated this way.

I can't believe Michelle is ignorant of what's been going on here. If this
is news to you, I suggest you Google Gao Zhisheng, a prominent lawyer who
was tortured viciously several times in the past few years, Chen
Guangcheng, a blind lawyer who remains under house arrest after serving
his prison sentence on trumped up charges, and is beaten in his own home,
Ni Yulan, a woman lawyer who had her feet and knees broken by the police
during torture, and who is awaiting sentencing three months after her
trial was heard. Or read the recent article in the New York Times by
another writer, Yu Jie, who describes his torture that was so vicious it
almost killed him.

Again, this is not 1989 or 1999. It's 2012. I'm shocked that anyone would
think we're in Tony Blair's England. These truths existed before and they
exist today.

Paul