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China’s ruling Communist Party is correct in seeing imprisoned dissident Liu Xiaobo as a subversive, said Perry Link. They fully understand that his notion of democratization by peaceful, gradual means would be widely popular – if his ideas were allowed to circulate.
Two years ago, the Nobel Committee awarded the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize to the prominent intellectual and democracy advocate “for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China.” Today, he remains in a Chinese prison serving the fourth year of an 11-year sentence, while authorities hold his wife under a de facto form of house arrest.
The Congressional-Executive Commission on China this week holds a hearing to discuss Liu’s views on Chinese political reform and his co-authorship of Charter 08, a grassroots political reform treatise signed by thousands of Chinese citizens. The hearing will also discuss the essays that formed the basis of the government’s “inciting subversion” charges against Liu. Witnesses will discuss Liu’s current legal status and ongoing international advocacy efforts on Liu’s behalf. In addition, witnesses will discuss conditions for Liu’s wife, Liu Xia, whose illegal home confinement has been referred to as the “most severe retaliation by a government given to a Nobel winner’s family.”
Representative Christopher Smith, Chairman and Senator Sherrod Brown, Cochairman
of the
Congressional-Executive Commission on China
announce a hearing on
“Two Years Later: The Ongoing Detentions of Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Liu Xiaobo and His Wife Liu Xia”
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
10 a.m. to 12 p.m.
2172 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC
Witnesses:
Carl Gershman, President, National Endowment for Democracy
Dr. Yang Jianli, President, Initiatives for China
Patrick Griffith, Program Attorney, Freedom Now
Yu Jie, Independent Author and Associate of Liu Xiaobo
Liu Min, Wife of Yu Jie; Friend of Liu Xiaobo and Liu Xia
Click here to download a copy of the Commission’s full 2012 Annual Report.
The Congressional-Executive Commission on China, established by the U.S.-China Relations Act of 2000 as China prepared to enter the World Trade Organization, is mandated by law to monitor human rights, including worker rights, and the development of the rule of law in China. The Commission by mandate also maintains a database of information on political prisoners in China-individuals who have been imprisoned by the Chinese government for exercising their civil and political rights under China’s Constitution and laws or under China’s international human rights obligations. All of the Commission’s reporting and its Political Prisoner Database are available to the public online via the Commission’s Web site, http://www.cecc.gov.
