Carta 08. Appello per il rilascio di Liu Xiaobo al cancelliere Merkel.

Appello per il rilascio dello scrittore cinese Dr. Liu Xiaobo, accusato e arrestato per “sovversione contro il potere dello stato”

La Laogai Research Foundation insieme a altre organizzazioni e attivisti per i diritti umani hanno inviato un appello a Angela Merkel per chiedere la liberazione di Liu Xiaobo ingiustamente condannato a 10 anni di Laogai dal regime comunista cinese per aver “incitato la sovversione dello Stato”.

Dopo aver passato più di sei mesi detenuto in una località sconosciuta nei pressi di Pechino senza nessuna accusa o processo, lo scrittore e critico letterario Dr. Liu Xiaobo è stato formalmente arrestato il 23 giugno 2009 in Pechino con l’imputazione di “Incitare la sovversione contro il potere dello Stato”.

Segue la lettera integrale in inglese

To the

German Government

Bundeskanzlerin Dr. Angela Merkel,

Bundestagvorsitzende Dr.Norbert Lammert,

Auswärtiges Amt

Parlament members of the Bundestag

Appeal to release Chinese writer Dr. Liu Xiaobo, now charged of inciting subversion of state power

26.6.2009

After spending more than six months in detention in an unknown place near Beijing without charge or trial, prominent writer and literary critic Dr. Liu Xiaobo was “formally” arrested in Beijing on 23 June and charged with “inciting subversion of state power”. The world community is outraged at this abusive and dictatorial act of the Chinese government. Liu Xiaobo, former President and Board member of the Independent Chinese PEN Centre, was arrested on 8 December 2008 for his role in publishing Charter 08, a document calling for political reform and human rights. Under the charge of subversion, Liu could face up to a decade of imprisonment.

Liu Xiaobo has been held under “residential surveillance” in the past six and half months. The Charter 08, which he initiated and participated in drafting, has been signed by over 8,500 Chinese citizens from all walks of life since its release on the eve of Human Rights Day, December 10, 2008. Liu was taken into custody immediately before the Charter’s release, on the evening of December 8, 2008. He will now be moved to a formal detention center in Beijing. Liu Xiaobo’s lawyer, Mo Shaoping, is not allowed to represent his client because of his own participation in Charter 08.

For more than two decades, Liu Xiaobo has raised his voice as an independent intellectual, inspiring his compatriots to liberate themselves from the Chinese Communist Party’s oder, advocating a civil awakening to gain basic human rights and a more humane and free society. In the spring of 1989, Liu left his research work at Columbia University in New York and returned to Beijing. He played a major role in the democracy movement, staging a hunger strike on Tiananmen Square in support of the students. He was instrumental in preventing even further bloodshed in the Square by advancing a call for non-violence on the part of the students. As a result, he was put in prison for two years. In 1996 he spent another three years of “reeducation through labor” for publicly questioning the role of the one-party system and calling for a dialogue between the Chinese government and the Dalai Lama. In 2004, after publishing essays criticizing the authorities’ use of “subversion” charges to silence journalists and activists, his phone lines and Internet connection were cut, his home was raided, and his computer, his files and books were confiscated. Ever since, Liu has been the target of regular police surveillance and harassment.

To arrest and charge Dr Liu Xiaobo is a severe violation against human rights, and also a threat to the practices of democracy in other countries. We strongly appeal to the German government to remind the Chinese government that to charge and put on trial Dr. Liu Xiaobo is a violation of China’s own constitution as well as Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which China is a signatory. The Beijing government should release Mr. Liu Xiaobo immediately and unconditionally.

Signatory

Tienchi Martin-Liao, Author, Director of the Laogai Research Foundation,Washington DC/Köln

Ruth Keen, literature translator, Berlin,

Wolfgang Windhausen, writer, member of the Deutschschweizer P.E.N., Duderstadt

Prof. Ines Geipel, writer, Berlin

Dr. Sabine Pamperrien, author & journalist, Berlin

Rui Hu, editor, Stuttgart

Katja Lampe, officer of the Ministry for Education and Research, Köln

Peng Xiaoming, Chairman of the Chinese Association for Students and Scholars in Germany, Siegburg

Christoph Mueller-Hofstede, M.A. Sinologist, Köln

Joachim von Stosch, media specialist, München

Eva Quistorp, MdEP a.D.,Women for Peace, Berlin