China Jails Literature Professor Who Demanded Open Elections and the Rule of Law
December 26th, 2009Via: New York Times:
The harsh sentence handed down on Friday to Liu Xiaobo, one of China’s most prominent campaigners for democracy and human rights, prompted strong rebukes in the United States and Europe, but it also raised fresh questions over whether the West has much leverage over a government that is increasingly self-assured on the world stage.
By sentencing Mr. Liu to 11 years in prison for subversion, the Chinese government sent a chilling message to advocates of political reform and free speech. Mr. Liu, 53, a former literature professor who helped draft a manifesto last December that demanded open elections and the rule of law, was convicted after a closed two-hour trial on Wednesday in which his lawyers were allowed less than 20 minutes to state his case.
But many experts on Chinese politics said that Mr. Liu’s conviction on vague charges of “incitement to subvert state power” through his writing was also an unmistakable signal to the West that China would not yield to international pressure when it came to human rights. During his visit to China last month, President Obama raised Mr. Liu’s case with President Hu Jintao. Leaders of the European Union have been pressing for his release.
But a spokesman for China’s Foreign Ministry described such pressure on Tuesday as “gross interference in China’s judicial internal affairs.” The next day, more than two dozen American and European diplomats who sought to observe the trial were barred from the courthouse.
“If China’s Communist Party wanted to advertise to the world that they will do anything to protect their power and use the judiciary to accomplish that, then the persecution of Liu Xiaobo was a perfect vehicle,” Jerome A. Cohen, an expert on China’s legal system and a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said Friday.
The State Department issued a statement on Friday calling on China to release Mr. Liu, saying that the “persecution of individuals for the peaceful expression of political views is inconsistent with internationally recognized norms of human rights.”
Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany said she was “dismayed” by the sentence. The United Nations said Mr. Liu’s conviction had thrown “an ominous shadow” over China’s commitments to human rights.
Such pointed criticisms are unlikely to have much impact, many China analysts said. Mr. Hu assumed full power in 2003 after a period of modest legal reforms. But under his leadership, the government has presided over a tightening of Internet restrictions, the repression of rights lawyers and the persecution of intellectuals who called for greater transparency and an end to single-party rule. Those who thought that the leadership might loosen its controls for the Beijing Olympics last year were disheartened by the crackdown that took place to prevent people from organizing demonstrations.
Edward Friedman, an expert on Chinese politics at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, said many people in the West had been clinging to the misguided notion that China’s economic development would quickly lead to political liberalization. “It’s clear that what matters most to the Chinese Communist Party is the survival of the regime and their monopoly on power,” he said.
