China Hands 11-Year Sentence to Dissident

(AP)  A Chinese court sentenced a prominent dissident to 11 years in jail Friday on subversion charges after he called for sweeping political reforms and an end to Communist Party dominance.

The sentencing of Liu Xiaobo comes despite international appeals for his release, which China sternly rejected as interference in its internal affairs.

Liu was the co-author of an unusually direct appeal for political liberalization in China called Charter 08. He was detained just before it was released last December. More than 300 people, including some of China's top intellectuals, signed it.

The verdict was issued at the No. 1 Intermediate People's Court in Beijing after a two-hour trial Wednesday where prosecutors accused Liu of "serious" crimes.

"All I can tell you now is 11 years," the defendant's wife, Liu Xia, told The Associated Press. Diplomats said they were told by Liu's lawyers that he had been deprived of his political rights for a further two years.

The vaguely worded charge of inciting to subvert state power is routinely used to jail dissidents. Liu could have been sentenced for up to 15 years in prison under the charge.

Liu is the only person to have been arrested for organizing the Charter 08 appeal, but others who signed it have reported being harassed.

Abolishing the law on inciting to subvert state power is among the reforms advocated in Charter 08. "We should end the practice of viewing words as crimes," the petition says.

The United States and European Union have urged Beijing to free Liu.

"We continue to call on the government of China to release him immediately," Gregory May, first secretary with the U.S. Embassy, told reporters outside the courthouse Friday. May was one of a dozen diplomats stopped by authorities from attending the trial and sentencing.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told reporters this week that statements from embassies calling for Liu's release were "a gross interference of China's internal affairs."

Liu, a former Beijing Normal University professor, spent 20 months in jail for joining the 1989 student-led protests in Tiananmen Square, which ended when the government called in the military - killing hundreds, perhaps thousands.

More than 300 international writers including Salman Rushdie, Umberto Eco and Margaret Atwood have called for Liu's release, saying he should be allowed to express his opinion.

Charter 08 demands a new constitution guaranteeing human rights, the open election of public officials, and freedom of religion and expression. Some 10,000 people have signed it in the past year, though a news blackout and Internet censorship have left most Chinese unaware that it exists.

Liu has been the only person arrested over the charter, but rights groups said several signers have been harassed or fired from their jobs, and warned not to attend the trial or write about it online.

[alphaa10000]

POSTPONING HISTORY

The Beijing dictatorship, sensing a threat to its power, will say anything and do anything to secure its rule. This ruling oligarchy changes masks faster than the Chinese people can follow, even with Xinhua News Agency's dutiful explanations.

Now, Beijing wears its dragon mask to frighten the Chinese people-- and to disguise its own fears of popular democracy.

The mask has been used before, and abruptly. At Tienanmen Square, everyone from Chinese farmers to students held a child-like trust in the People's Liberation Army, composed of ordinary people like them. "Surely, the army never will fire on its own people," many demonstrators reassured others.

Imagine their surprise, suddenly to be fired upon by the same army-- in an action so pitiless, not even ambulances and stretcher-bearers could enter the square to retrieve dead and dying citizens, who called to them for aid.

Liu Xiaobo is a powerful, eloquent symbol of the democratic spirit of Tienanmen rising, once again. Clearly, Beijing has not killed the desire of the Chinese people for democracy.

Beijing may make an example of Liu Xiaobo, but his example is pure, uncompromising martyrdom-- the best recruiting poster a movement could have.

And if Liu Xiaobo represents anything about popular opinion among the Chinese people, the undercurrent of discussion and debate for democracy continues, stronger than ever.

To buttress its police-state reaction to protest and criticism, Beijing also attempts to shut down access to the internet, where the world community engages in free and openly-expressed opinion, discussion and news exchange.

Cooperating with Beijing in creating a digital great wall of misinformation are US firms Yahoo, Google and Microsoft. These patriotic US firms buckled under PRC pressure, and agreed to act as censors against the Chinese people, if only Beijing would give them access to the PRC market.

The hypocrisy about democratic values vs. actual practice continues, unabated.

In the case of Liu Xiaobo, how apropos of Tibet Beijing should offer the same smokescreen to world opinion-- "Believe our ideals," Beijing insisted to G.W. Bush when he attended the Olympic games-- despite world protests in support of Tibet. "Do not criticize us for what we actually do."

[saigon2]

I lived in China. I know they imprison and kill more people than you imagine. When you are in communist jail, you know it. Here, people in jail get rights; in China, you don't. Get the facts, no guessing.

[saigon2]

Communists China, North Korea, Vietnam are all the same. The word human rights and democracy scare them to death. In Vietam they beat and jail priests, monks, lawyers, innocent people who speak the truth. They are a mafia gang.

[curse914]

Look, China has proven that Capitalism does not require Democracy to function. The "Communist China" meme does not apply anymore. We imprison more of our people than China; you can thank the failed war on drugs for this spiffy statistic.

[ToolMangler1]

by curse914 December 25, 2009 12:29 AM EST
"We imprison more of our people than China"


We have 300 million people, As of year-end 2007, a record 7.2 million people were behind bars, on probation, or on parole, with 2.3 million of those actually incarcerated.
China has 2 billion people and "all of them are in prison"...

[andacar]

The next time either of you right or left wingers blab your paranoid fantasies of your rights being taken away, or thugs in the night breaking down the door here in America, read something like this. Read about real thugs in the night, people being jailed for years just for saying the kinds of things that are regularly said on forums like this. You might develop a renewed appreciation for what you have. I think that's especially appropriate and sobering during Christmas.

[curse914]

Freedom is a fragile thing, easily stolen away in the night under the guise of safety.

[ToolMangler1]

"The vaguely worded charge of inciting to subvert state power is routinely used to jail dissidents."



China is as scared of the truth as is N.Korea, Islam, Iran, Venezuela, Cuba and the Vatican.
The Vatican is the only one to speak of looking at the alternate point of view, (for them, science) in the past year.
Until there is am embracing of the truth from all, there will be harm and sorrow inflicted on all mankind.