Write for Rights: Urge China to free Liu Xiaobo and Gao Zhisheng!

Yesterday, Kwame Anthony Appiah, author of our November book, The Honor Code, and President of PEN USA, taped the appeal above for Nobel Peace Laureate Liu Xiaobo one year after he was unable to attend the Nobel ceremony due to his imprisonment in China. US Ambassador to China, Gary Locke also released a statement calling for the release of Liu and added pleas for his wife Liu Xia, 'disappeared' lawyer Gao Zhisheng (the case that the Pasadena chapter of Amnesty International has adopted) and another human rights defender, Chen Guangcheng, 

While China has undoubtedly made great strides in developing its economy, the imprisonment of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo and restrictions on the freedoms of his spouse Liu Xia, the illegal “disappearing” of Gao Zhisheng, the unlawful detention of Chinese citizens such as lawyer Chen Guangcheng, and constraints on the religious freedom and practices of Tibetan, Uighur and Christian communities do not bring China closer to achieving its stated goals. 

There is much work to be done by all governments to fully live up to the principles that all persons are created free and equal in dignity and rights. Today, I urge the People’s Republic of China to uphold its commitments to the Universal Declaration.

You can help Appiah and Locke make this point to the Chinese government. We know you've already made great contributions this weekend to the Write for Rights campaign, but please take a couple more minutes to take these easy online actions on behalf of Chinese human rights defenders. Thank you!

Take Action for Liu Xiaobo 

Take Action for Gao Zhisheng 

Additional Actions for Chinese Human Rights Defenders 

Day of the Imprisoned Writer

Today is the Day of the Imprisoned Writer, an annual, international day intended to recognize and support writers who resist repression of the right to freedom of expression, sponsored by PEN. Because we are reading Kwame Anthony Appiah's The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen this month, and Appiah is the current President of PEN USA, I wanted to be sure to not let the day pass by unacknowledged.  Here he is talking about PEN's work on behalf of imprisoned Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo:


At the PEN website, be sure to check out the suggested actions on behalf of writers in Ethiopia, China, Mexico, Bahrain and Turkey. Write a letter today or print them out and bring them to Amnesty International's Global Write-a-thon in December.

You can take action for Liu Xiaobo here. Imprisonment won't keep him silent though. The Guardian reports on the first collection of his work in English, No Enemies, No Hatred: Selected Essays and Poems, coming out in January.

The Empty Chair

This Human Rights Day we pause to honor Peace Laureate Liu Xiaobo by acknowledging the empty chair at the Nobel ceremonies. Amnesty International urges you to take action:

Nobel Peace Prize recipient Liu Xiaobo was charged with "inciting subversion of state power" and given an 11-year prison sentence on December 25, 2009 simply for co-authoring a proposal for political and legal reform in China. On October 7, the Beijing Municipal Higher People's Court upheld Liu Xiaobo's prison sentence. Urge Chinese authorities to release Liu Xiaobo immediately and unconditionally.

And we urge you to slip in a reference to Group 22 Pasadena's Chinese prisoner of conscience case Gao Zhisheng too. Check out the Globe and Mail's profiles of a courageous "Gang of 10" dissidents to watch, including Gao. To learn more about Liu Xiaobo, visit PEN's resource page.  You might also want to check out PEN President Kwame Anthony Appiah's piece on Liu in Foreign Policy: China's Burden of Shame which also mentions Gao. The NYT offers a Liu poem today.

Rights Readers authors have commented on Liu Xiaobo's plight and it's implications for the future of Chinese democracy.  Here's Orville Schell (Mandate Of Heaven) on PBS Newshour.  And Ma Jian (The Noodle Maker) writes in the Scotsman,

Though now better off than they have ever been in material terms, the Chinese people are denied any real opportunity to retain and refine their own dignity beyond the quest for wealth and luxury goods.   Liu's prize is a rebuke to the regime, because it rejects the dogma that nothing but the pursuit of economic interest matters.

We wouldn't want to overlook the Nobel Literature Laureate, Mario Vargas Llosa.  Many years we enjoyed reading Death in the Andes.  Rights Readers author Daniel Alarcon (Lost City Radio) reacts to the news of his award on WNYC and offers up a bit of fan worship in the Paris Review.  Vargas-Llosa's Nobel speech is well worth the read for this thoughts on reading, exile, and human rights, not missing the chance to acknowledge the empty chair himself,

...a dictatorship represents absolute evil for a country, a source of brutality and corruption and profound wounds that take a long time to close, poison the nation’s future, and create pernicious habits and practices that endure for generations and delay democratic reconstruction. This is why dictatorships must be fought without hesitation, with all the means at our disposal, including economic sanctions. It is regrettable that democratic governments, instead of setting an example by making common cause with those, like the Damas de Blanco in Cuba, the Venezuelan opposition, or Aung San Suu Kyi and Liu Xiaobo, who courageously confront the dictatorships they endure, often show themselves complaisant not with them but with their tormenters. Those valiant people, struggling for their freedom, are also struggling for ours.