Writers in Prison Committee Chair's Notebook
December 30 2009
We should end the practice of viewing words as crimes.
Charter 08
This year ends with the sentencing of one of International PEN's most distinguished colleagues, Liu Xiaobo. Considered by Chinese authorities to be the principal mind behind Charter 08, his sentence of 11 years on charges of 'incitement to subversion of state power,' is meant to set a terrible example, which it does. Please read Charter 08*, in honour of Liu Xiaobo; here's why it matters....
Words matter. Charter 08 is a 3000-word statement declared first by 300 dissidents (all citizens, all resident in China) offering to the Chinese people, 'in a spirit of duty as responsible and constructive citizens,' 19 principles of democracy that the Charter's creators believe are essential. Why? Because 'the Chinese government's approach to 'modernization' has proven disastrous. It has stripped people of their rights, destroyed their dignity, and corrupted normal human intercourse. So we ask: Where is China headed in the 21st century? Will it continue with 'modernization' under authoritarian rule, or will it embrace universal human values, join the mainstream of civilized nations, and build a democratic system? There can be no avoiding these questions.'
History matters. Charter 08 boldly invokes Charter 77, the 1977 declaration by Czech and Slovak dissidents including the playwright who would become president, Vaclav Havel. In barely 600 trenchant words, Charter 08 lays out a simple chronological analysis of China's last one hundred years; phrases like 'warlord chaos' and 'cultural illness' and 'abyss of totalitarianism' jump off the page. In a mere five sentences, all the banners of modern Chinese history from 1910 to 1989 - The May Fourth Movement, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution - are ripped down to reveal a devastating scene: 'Tens of millions have lost their lives, and several generations have seen their freedom, their happiness, and their human dignity cruelly trampled.'
Dates matter. The Charter was issued on December 10, 2008, the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. In fact, the Charter opens with a litany of dates: 'A hundred years have passed since the writing of China's first constitution. 2008 also marks the sixtieth anniversary of the promulgation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the thirtieth anniversary of the appearance of the Democracy Wall in Beijing, and the tenth of China's signing of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. We are approaching the twentieth anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre of pro-democracy student protesters.' Ah yes; some dates really matter.
Numbers matter. The original Charter bore 300 signatures. Since its appearance, more than 10,000 Chinese citizens have signed the statement. More than 300 Western writers signed an International PEN letter to President Hu Jintao protesting Liu Xiaobo's detention on December 8, 2008. In December, 2009, just before Liu Xiaobo's trial, more than 300 Chinese citizens signed a letter of solidarity: We are willing to share responsibility with Liu Xiaobo.
Names matter. All over China, on or around December 10, 2008, signatories were harassed, interrogated, their houses searched, passports removed, bank accounts emptied. Some were detained, notably Liu Xiaobo. Liu was held without being charged for just over one year. On December 23, 2009 he was finally tried; his wife and foreign diplomats were barred from the courtroom. That day Internet writer Liu Di had herself detained (later released) and issued a statement: 'For the dignity of Constitution and laws, and for no more imprisonment of the people for their independent opinions, I would prefer to share with Mr. Liu Xiaobo the same case with the same penalty.'
On December 25, 2009, Liu Xiaobo was sentenced to 11 years and is also to be denied his political rights for two additional years. He is appealing his sentence, which he must do within ten days.
So must we. [see call to action sent to PEN Centres earlier today, 30 January 2009]
May 2010, as we mark the 50th anniversary of the Writers in Prison Committee, be a year in which progress is made in ending the practice of viewing words as crimes.
*[For Charter 08 in English: http://www.pen.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/3552/prmID/1610]
November 30 2009
Because writers speak their minds
Fifty years after the formation of the Writers in Prison Committee, I am deeply honoured to be elected as its Chair, and I will do my utmost to work with the Centres, the Board, and the exceptional WiPC staff, in the spirit of the Committee's original mandate.
In July, 1960, at a PEN Congress held in Rio de Janeiro, General Secretary David Carver reported that a committee of three people had been empowered at a previous meeting to research and produce a list of imprisoned writers. The lists he circulated to delegates at that meeting named seven writers imprisoned in Albania, 25 in Czechoslovakia, 13 in Hungary, two in France and nine in Romania.
Mr. Carver proposed that where PEN Centres existed, in "a country where writers had been imprisoned because they spoke or wrote their minds," those Centres should take all possible steps to improve the situation and to report to PEN, and in countries where there were no Centres, International PEN should act through the Writers in Prison Committee.
The creation of a Writers in Prison Committee formalized concerns about freedom of expression and the persecution of writers that had been an aspect of PEN's work from the beginning. As early as 1932 at the Hungarian Congress, a resolution was passed unanimously opposing the suppression of literature. In 1935 formal resolutions were passed on specific cases-two German writers, Ludwig Ronn and Carl Ossietzky, and the Haitian writer, Jacques Roumain. In 1959, telegrams were sent by many PEN Centres to the Soviet Union about the 'rumours concerning Pasternak.'
The committee of three individuals is now a Committee of more than 70 PEN Centres. The case list, tragically now contains the names of almost 900 writers encarcelados, perseguidos, desaparecidos o asesinados por que han hablado o escrito lo que pensaban. The nature of the persecution, and the nature of the work of the Committee over those fifty years (and in the years leading up to the formation of the actual Committee), has changed in unfathomable ways.
Imbedded in the history of PEN's "compassionate solidarity with persecuted writers" is a focus on the plight of the individual. We have always named names. Nous avons toujours travaillé avec acharnement depuis le moment de l'imprisonnement jusqu'au moment de la liberation ou jusqu'au décès, et souvent delà, des collègues opprimés parce ce'qu'ils ont ecrit ou declaré ce qu'ils pensaient.
Parce que plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. Burning books and blocking blogs are one and the same. Quite simply, as our brave Chinese colleagues exhort in Charter 08, We must stop the practice of viewing words as crimes.
During the celebration of the WiPC's 50th anniversary next year, we will look back at the work we've done, by highlighting fifty cases that illustrate where and how and why we have worked. We'll examine how that work has changed, how the nature of persecution has changed. And we'll look to the future, to see how the WiPC must evolve and adapt to meet these new challenges. Because writers must speak their minds.