Release Dr. Liu Xiaobo and Stop Suppressing Freedom of Expression
Beijing warned the Nobel Peace Prize committee not to honour Liu Xiaobo, saying that the Peace Prize would be a gesture of supporting a criminal. China-based newspaper Global Times echoed by calling Liu a radical and separatist. China¡¦s police continued to threaten and question some of the more than 300 people who signed Charter 08 at the beginning of its circulation in December 2008.

Relatives and friends of Liu, and other human rights workers have been under house-arrest and unable to neither leave the country nor use communication tools. It is also reported that Liu Xia, wife of Liu Xiaobo, has been detained until the end of January 2011. Therefore, no one represented Liu Xiaobo to receive the prize in Oslo. Moreover, 18 other countries did not attend the Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony.

Liu who co-drafted the Charter 08, calling for peaceful reform of the country, was sentenced to 11-year in prison since 25 December 2009 for "inciting subversion of state power". He had earlier spent most of his years in prison after the June 4 Massacre in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

ACPP issued UA081224(9) and UA090626(5) in December 2008 and June 2009 respectively to call for the release of Liu and the halt of harassment of other signatories to Charter 08.

Sources: South China Morning Post, Radio Television Hong Kong and Apple daily

The sentence of 11-year imprisonment for Liu Xiaobo was affirmed on 11 February 2010, after the Beijing Municipal High People's Court reviewed his appeal and upheld his conviction of "inciting subversion of state power".

Liu, 53, is one of the drafters of Charter 08 which calls for political reform and improvement of human rights in China. He has been detained, imprisoned, and put under house arrest many times for his criticism on government, including a 20-month detention for participation in the 1989 Democracy Movement, and a 3-year sentence of Re-education-Through-Labor (1996-1999) for criticizing corruption of Chinese government. Despite the suppression, Liu kept exposing the dissatisfying human rights conditions in China and advocating for political reform until his detention started on 8 December 2008. He was only formally arrested on suspicion of subversion on 23 June 2009.

The original statement of Liu's verdict can be found at:
<http://www.hrichina.org/public/contents/press?revision%5fid=172717&item%5fid=172713>
and the English translation is available at:
<http://www.hrichina.org/public/PDFs/PressReleases/2009.12.30-LXB-verdict.pdf>.

Four senior Communist Party officials, who have been supportive for political reforms, have signed a letter, addressed to "incumbent party and government leaders", to urge authorities to reconsider the verdict against Liu.

Celebrities around the world, such as the former President of the Czech Republic, Vaclav Havel, Nobel Prize laureates, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Dalai Lama, have announced their nomination of Liu Xiao for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Meanwhile, the persecution on dissidents is still on-going. Zhao Dagong, the general secretary of the Independent Chinese Pen Society and one of the signatories to Charter 08, was taken away on 11 January 2010 after plain-clothes police officers searched his home.

ACPP issued UA081224(9) and UA090626(5) in December 2008 and June 2009, respectively, to call for the release of Liu and the halt of harassment of other signatories to Charter 08.

Sources:
Human Rights in China, saveliuxiaobo.wordpress.com, South China Morning Post

Dr. Liu Xiaobo, the prominent leader of Democracy Movement in 1989 and drafter of the “Charter 08” (a petition calling for political reforms and the protection of human rights in the country), was convicted of “inciting subversion of State power” on 25 December 2009, and sentenced to 11 years of imprisonment and two years’ deprivation of political rights.

The trial of Liu took place in Beijing No.1 Intermediate People's Court on 23 December 2009 and only lasted three hours, with security locking people out of the courtroom. The trial took place only 12 days after Liu was indicted. His lawyers have requested postponement of the trial, considering that they did not have enough time to review the case file and prepare their defense. However, the judge rejected the request, saying that “it was not possible”. Rights activists accused Chinese government of deliberately pushing the case through the courts during the Western holiday season to avoid global attention.

On the eve of the trial, several social activists and supporters of Liu were threatened by the police not to organize any supporting activities on internet nor in front of the court during the trial. The police also warned some of these supporters not to leave their homes in the following 3 days, with attempt of forbidding them to go to the Court. Moreover, Liu's wife was prohibited from attending his trial on the grounds that she was a "witness" for the prosecution.

In Beijing, several diplomats of foreign embassies, including the United States (U.S.), Germany and Australia, requested to observe the trial but were told that all the observer passes had already been given out and they were barred from the courthouse when Liu's trial began. It is reported that Liu’s lawyers were not able to conduct any interviews under strict orders from the State Judicial Bureau, until the verdict was finished.

Dr. Liu handed his appeal to the court on 29 December despite limited chance of altering the result. Under normal conditions, the hearing of appeal should be held within one month after the appeal being lodged. His lawyer, Shang Baojun, urged the international community to continue calling for release of Liu, hoping that pressure on Beijing could lead to a successful appeal or at least better prison treatment.

Since the verdict of Liu, the international community has criticized Chinese government’s contempt for its commitments for universal human rights. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, issued a statement of concern that the conviction and extremely harsh sentence of Liu Xiaobo marked a severe restriction on the scope of freedom of expression in China. A number of governments, including the U.S., European, and Canadian governments, have also issued statements of concern. Human rights groups have widely denounced the harsh sentence of Liu Xiaobo for exercising rights which is guaranteed by the Chinese constitution and international laws.

In Hong Kong, 21 protesters demonstrated on the Lo Wu Bridge, the area between the immigration border of Hong Kong and Shenzhen, on 27 December. Linking with a black thread on their wrists and wearing placards on the backs, protesters tried to walk across the bridge and give themselves up as signatories of Charter 08. Upon arriving the border of Shenzhen, three of the protestors, as well as a journalist and a passerby, were dragged away by Chinese officers in plain clothes to Shenzhen immigration control point. Those who were not arrested tried to find Hong Kong policers for help, but they did nothing, according to one of the protestors. The arrested were released after three hours of detention.

Other signatories of Charter 08 have also been harassed. Zhao Shiying, the secretary-general of the Independent Chinese Pen Center, has been harassed since 2008. Just about two weeks after the verdict of Liu, he was taken by the police on 11 January 2010 after a house search.

ACPP issued UA081224(9) and UA090626(5) respectively in August 2008 and June 2009 to call for the release of Liu and halt of harassment of other signatories of Charter 08, in solidarity with the concerned groups all over the world.

Sources:
Human Rights in China, the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, Agene France-Press, Associated Press, Reuters, AsiaNews, South China Morning Post

Liu Xiaobo was formally arrested on suspicion of subversion on 23 June. Three days later, he was allowed to meet his two lawyers, Ding Xikui and Shang Baojun, but his family was not allowed to visit him.

According to Ding, the evidence that the government held on the case were 20 articles, including Charter 08 which Liu Xiaobo has written and published overseas. Ding stated that he has submitted application to bail Liu but was declined, and no official reason was given for the rejection.

Mo Shaoping, Liu's former lawyer, explained that, according to the law, it is possible to detain Liu for eight and a half months before the trial.

Liu Xiaobo was arrested in relation to his involvement in Charter 08, a human rights document drafted by civil society. To call for the release of Liu and halt harassment of other signatories of the Charter, ACPP issued UA090626(5) in June 2009. .

Source:
Ming Pao (Hong Kong newspaper),
Apple Daily (Hong Kong newspaper)