Missing Chinese Lawyer Gao Zhisheng Honored With International Human Rights Award

By James Burke/Epoch Times Staff, Aug.7, 2010 –

Gao Zhisheng's 17-year-old daughter Grace accepted the International Human Rights Lawyer Award on his behalf at an event held in San Francisco on Friday, Aug. 6. (Huang Yiyan/The Epoch Times)

Gao Zhisheng, a missing Chinese attorney, has been honored with an international human rights award from the American Bar Association (ABA). With Mr. Gao missing in China, his 17-year-old daughter Grace accepted the International Human Rights Lawyer Award on his behalf at an event held in San Francisco on Friday, Aug. 6.

The annual award is given to lawyers well-known for taking on human rights cases and who have in turn, suffered persecution because of their efforts.

Coming from an impoverished background, Mr.. Gao was self-educated and would go on to be described by Chinese officials as one of China’s ten best lawyers. A dedicated Christian, he was well known for his work in assisting China’s poor and marginalized but he met the wrath of Chinese state security once he began defending the rights of persecuted Falun Gong practitioners.

“Because of that work, his law license was taken from him in 2005,” said an ABA posting on the International Law Prof Blog. “In 2006, he was charged with subversion and sentenced to house arrest. In 2007, just before the Olympics, he wrote a letter to the US Congress to explain the human rights situation. He was arrested and reportedly tortured for a period of almost 60 days,” said the ABA posting.

“He told a journalist about that experience and said that the loss of dignity made him feel as if he was nothing but an animal. His family was also arrested and allegedly tortured. His wife and two children were able to escape from China in a harrowing journey to the U.S. Embassy in Thailand, and later arrived in the United States last year.”

Mr. Gao’s current whereabouts are unknown and there are concerns for his well-being and safety. In 2007 the English translation of his memoir A China More Just was published, and in 2008 Mr. Gao was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

In December last year ABA President Carolyn B. Lamm wrote to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton describing the conditions that lawyers face in China and asked the US State Department to step up its activities to help protect Chinese lawyers.

With more than 400,000 members the American Bar Association, is the largest voluntary professional association in the world.

– The Epochtimes

China’s Export of Censorship (2)

by Christopher Walker and Sarah Cook, Far Eastern Economic Review, October 12, 2009-

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More insidious has been an indirect form of economic intimidation, whereby publications, event organizers or governments engage in self-censorship on topics deemed sensitive to the mainland, a dynamic some have dubbed “pre-emptive kowtowing.” Given their small size, proximity and relationship to the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan are particularly vulnerable to this phenomenon.

This June, the Hong Kong edition of Esquire magazine, published by South China Media, pulled a feature story by journalist Daisy Chu on the Tiananmen Square massacre slated to run on the 20th anniversary. In 2008, a prominent legal journal in Hong Kong made a last-minute decision not to publish an article on Tibetan self-determination. A blackout on independent coverage of the Falun Gong is believed to be practiced among certain Hong Kong and Taiwanese outlets whose owners have close ties to Beijing or significant business interests on the mainland.

As China’s economic clout and role on the global stage grows, it will inevitably exert greater influence beyond its borders. However, the issue is not whether China—which features one the world’s least hospitable environments for free expression—will project influence but what shape this growing power will take. The CCP plans, for instance, to spend billions of dollars on expanding its overseas media operations in a potentially massive show of “soft power.” But whether this enormous investment will simply project the deeply illiberal values that characterize China’s domestic media scene to a wider playing field is a question advocates of free expression should seriously ponder.

This critical question, so far, does not provide an encouraging answer.

China’s attempts to insinuate itself into Taiwan’s media sector, and Beijing’s ongoing efforts to limit the vitality of Hong Kong’s media, are among the examples of this phenomenon in Asia. The CCP has recently demonstrated its willingness to suppress open expression in Germany and Australia. The United States is not immune to this pressure. The Dalai Lama will be waiting a bit longer for his meeting with President Obama.

The Chinese government’s position at the vanguard of efforts to monitor and filter Internet content, using its wealth and technical acumen to devise methods to limit the free and independent flow of information online, also has serious transnational implications for free expression. China effectively serves as an incubator for new media suppression; authoritarian governments around the world carefully watch China’s censorship techniques and learn from its innovations.

The community of democratic states must acknowledge the Chinese government’s growing media ambitions and efforts to censor beyond its borders. Acquiescence in this challenge will only embolden the Chinese authorities.

Christopher Walker is director of studies and Sarah Cook is an Asia researcher at Freedom House.

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– Original report

China’s Export of Censorship (1)

by Christopher Walker and Sarah Cook, Far Eastern Economic Review, October 12, 2009-

The Chinese government’s effort to prevent dissident authors from taking part in the prestigious Frankfurt Book Fair, an international showcase for freedom of expression, has offered Germany a close-up view of China’s intolerance of dissent.

In September, two Chinese writers, journalist Dai Qing and poet Bei Ling, had their invitations to the fair revoked by German event organizers after China’s organizing committee complained. The Chinese delegation threatened a boycott over invitations to the writers for a September symposium promoting the Frankfurt Book Fair, which begins on October 14. China is the “guest of honor” at this year’s fair. In the face of this pressure, the event’s organizers withdrew the invitations. The writers’ participation was ultimately enabled when the German PEN club of independent writers invited the two Chinese dissidents.

While Beijing’s coercive behavior caught many Germans off guard, it should not have come as a surprise; the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) censorship ambitions are neither new, nor limited to Germany. In fact, this action is just the latest example of an ongoing pattern of interference, cooptation and intimidation beyond China’s borders used to muzzle voices critical of the Chinese government.

Two days after the opening of the Frankfurt Book Fair, a film festival in Taiwan’s second largest city, Kaohsiung, will begin. It, too, has come under pressure to censor. In this instance the issue is a planned screening of “The 10 Conditions of Love,” a documentary about exiled Uighur rights activist Rebiya Kadeer. Chinese authorities assert Kadeer has terrorist links, unsubstantiated claims not accepted by most Western countries or independent analysts. Despite pressure to shelve the film—linked to fears that the city’s growing industry servicing mainland tourists could be hurt—the Kaohsiung Film Archive and the organizing committee of the 2009 Kaohsiung Film Festival announced on September 27 that it would go ahead with the screening. A similar series of events unfolded at the Melbourne Film Festival this summer.

In September, Uighur activist Dolkun Isa, who holds German citizenship, was denied entry into South Korea, to take part in a conference on democracy. China is South Korea’s largest trading partner. Isa, who fled China in 1997 and obtained asylum in Germany, was held at the Seoul airport without explanation for two days after being denied entry to South Korea.

The Chinese authorities have developed an elaborate arsenal of censorship, including an extensive domestic apparatus of information control. Less appreciated and understood are the methods of interference and intimidation employed to muzzle critical voices abroad. Some of the modern authoritarian techniques the Chinese authorities use for this purpose beyond its borders are detailed in a study, “Undermining Democracy: 21st Century Authoritarians,” recently released by Freedom House, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and Radio Free Asia.

Economic coercion is a principal line of attack in the transnational suppression of issues deemed sensitive by China’s rulers. The coercion is applied directly and indirectly.

Instances of direct economic coercion and censorship typically occur when an event has already been planned or already begun. Pressure is then applied by Chinese government representatives on the organizers or local authorities to suppress certain activities or appearances deemed undesirable by the CCP. In such instances, explicit or implicit threats of boycotts, trade sanctions, or withdrawal of Chinese government funding have been used to force the hand of those in charge. The CCP’s Frankfurt Book Fair gambit fits this model, given the financial implications of the Chinese government’s $15 million investment in the event. (next >>)

Torch for China Human Rights Reaches the Heart of the EU

Epoch Times Belgium Staff, Oct 01, 2007-

BRUSSELS, Belgium— After a morning of pouring rain, the skies cleared for the welcoming ceremony for the Human Rights Torch relay at Schumann Place in Brussels, Belgium. Members of almost all the parties in Belgium’s Parliament supported the event.

The Human Rights Torch, which started its five-continent trek in Athens, Greece on August 9, arrived in Brussels, the administrative capital of the EU, on September 28. Brussels is the Torch’s twelfth stop. The torch brings with it the message that human rights violations cannot continue in China if the Chinese regime will be allowed to host the Olympic Games.

The Torch Relay was initiated by the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (CIPFG.) Many think the persecution of Falun Gong, affecting one hundred million practitioners, and involving torture, murder, and organ theft, is the worst human rights violation happening in China. CIPFG started the Torch Relay to tell the world about the persecution of Falun Gong, Christianity, Islam, democracy and freedom of belief, assembly and expression by the Chinese Communist Party.

Mr. Petitjean, local CIPFG representative, said in the opening speech: “The 2008 Olympics are less then 12 months away while according to reports from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other NGO’s, the Chinese communist regime has stepped up measures to further silence anyone suffering repression under their rule.”

He added “The torch relay is aimed at urging the international community to boycott the Olympic games in Beijing as we believe hosting the Olympics in Beijing would be a travesty of the Olympic spirit and a direct violation of the Olympic Charter”.

One of the Belgian Torch Relay ambassadors, Senator Vankrunkelsven, who carried out his own investigation into illegal organ transplanting in China in 2006, stressed in his speech the ongoing human rights violations in China. “The Chinese regime will use the Olympics for their image, while we should not cease to use this opportunity to expose the real situation in China,” Vankrunkelsven stated.

The ongoing persecution in China was sadly illustrated by this week’s arrest of renowned human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng in China, because of his open letter to the U.S. congress. Therefore the participants of the Torch Relay in Belgium wore yellow ribbons to show their support for lawyer Gao. “We have great appreciation and admiration for Gao’s determination and courage in issuing this open letter at a time when he was placed under extensive surveillance and subject to severe coercion from the Chinese regime”, as one of the speeches mentioned.

The list of support statements from political and cultural personalities presented at the ceremony was extensive. “I hereby announce that I will support CIPFG’s Global Human Rights Torch Relay. We will join all those who stand up for justice, and together we will light the torch and let the brightness of justice illuminate all corners of our world,” one of the Belgian mayors wrote.

– Original report from the Epochtimes : Human Rights Torch Reaches the Heart of the European Union