Angry China Blocks Prize Celebration
By ANDREW JACOBS
Published: October 9, 2010
BEIJING — The banquet organized Friday night to celebrate the news that the jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo had won the Nobel Peace Prize was over before it began.
Paul Mooney
The police in Beijing on Friday broke up a banquet honoring the dissident Liu Xiaobo for winning the Nobel Peace Prize.
While the two dozen bloggers, rights lawyers and academics were arriving at the private room they had reserved at a Beijing restaurant shortly after the Norwegian Committee’s announcement, the police rushed in and briskly led the celebrators away, according to those who were there.
On Saturday evening, at least a half-dozen participants remained in custody.
As presidents, religious figures and rights advocates around the world praised the Nobel Committee and called on the Chinese government to release Mr. Liu, one of China’s most prominent dissidents, the Chinese government reacted with unrestrained ire.
They called in the Norwegian ambassador in Beijing for a dressing down, placed scores of dissidents under house arrest and angrily described the decision to honor Mr. Liu as “blasphemy” and an insult to the Chinese people.
Mr. Liu, 54, a former literature professor who has spent the past 20 years pressing for political reform in China, is serving an 11-year sentence for “inciting subversion of the stare,” based on his writings and a pro-democracy manifesto, Charter ’08, that he helped to draft. The document, which demands an end to single-party rule and calls for expanded liberties, gathered 10,000 signatures before government censors blocked its circulation on the Internet.
In an editorial on Saturday, The Global Times, a state newspaper, accused the Nobel Committee of imposing “Western” values on China, showing contempt for its legal system and seeking to split the nation by provoking social strife. “Every Chinese can sense a deliberate maliciousness in doing so,” it said.
The English-language version of the same newspaper expanded on the theme, quoting an international relations professor at Renmin University, who said that the decision to select Mr. Liu for the prize was intended to humiliate China. “Such a decision will not only draw the ire of the Chinese public, but also damage the reputation of the prize,” said the professor, Shi Yinhong.
On Friday night, scores of journalists gathered outside Mr. Liu’s home, but the police refused to allow his wife, Liu Xia, to come out and would not let reporters enter. The police later led her away, promising to escort her to Jinzhou Prison, 300 miles away in Liaoning Province, to see her husband.
Ms. Liu’s brother said that she had spoken to family members on Saturday and that she would be seeing her husband on Sunday. Calls to Ms. Liu’s cellphone went unanswered on Saturday, and friends expressed concern because they could not reach her.
In an interview last week, Ms. Liu said she had little expectation that her husband would win the prize but said that if he did, she hoped it might prompt the authorities to release him earlier. “As my friends have said, how can they keep a Nobel Peace Prize in Jinzhou Prison?” she said.
Few Chinese citizens seemed aware of the honor accorded Mr. Liu, even 24 hours after its announcement. “Never heard of him, but we also haven’t watched TV recently,” said Yang Guwen, dressed in a denim cowboy shirt, as he and his girlfriend walked beneath a huge television screen that hangs over one of the capital’s ritziest shopping malls.
Had he followed news reports, Mr. Yang would not have learned that a Chinese citizen had won one of the world’s most respected prizes. Except for the Global Times editorial and a brief Foreign Ministry condemnation posted on the Internet, Chinese newspapers and Web-based portals ignored the news. Anyone typing the words “Nobel Peace Prize” or “Liu Xiaobo” into Google found themselves facing a blank screen.
A veteran civil rights lawyer, Teng Biao, said he was on his way to meet a foreign journalist on Saturday when he was stopped by national security agents at the Beijing university where he teaches. “The officers say that the police have rigid orders from higher authorities that they must work resolutely to thwart celebratory activities to mark this event,” he said in a cellphone interview, having briefly stepped away from the agents to take a call. “They are keeping a strict eye on the most active people, in order to reduce its impact to the smallest degree possible.”
The activists who gathered for the celebratory meal on Friday night were no stranger to police surveillance. Earlier in the evening, they had met in a park with yellow ribbons pinned to their shirts and clear plastic sleeves — the kinds favored by conventioneers — slung around their necks. The sleeves carried two portraits of Mr. Liu: one dark and somber, the other brightly lighted and decidedly cheery.
When word of the Nobel Prize arrived, they turned the happy photo to face out, walked to the restaurant and tacked a portrait of Mr. Liu on a wall. By the time Paul Mooney, a reporter with the newspaper South China Morning Post in Hong Kong, arrived, the police had already shown up.
After a brief scuffle, the men and women were led away, leaving Mr. Mooney alone with a roomful of police and the crumpled portrait of the Nobel Prize winner on the floor. Out of curiosity, he asked the young officers if they were familiar with Mr. Liu. “None of them even knew who he was,” he said.
On Saturday evening, at least a half-dozen participants remained in custody.
As presidents, religious figures and rights advocates around the world praised the Nobel Committee and called on the Chinese government to release Mr. Liu, one of China’s most prominent dissidents, the Chinese government reacted with unrestrained ire.
They called in the Norwegian ambassador in Beijing for a dressing down, placed scores of dissidents under house arrest and angrily described the decision to honor Mr. Liu as “blasphemy” and an insult to the Chinese people.
Mr. Liu, 54, a former literature professor who has spent the past 20 years pressing for political reform in China, is serving an 11-year sentence for “inciting subversion of the stare,” based on his writings and a pro-democracy manifesto, Charter ’08, that he helped to draft. The document, which demands an end to single-party rule and calls for expanded liberties, gathered 10,000 signatures before government censors blocked its circulation on the Internet.
In an editorial on Saturday, The Global Times, a state newspaper, accused the Nobel Committee of imposing “Western” values on China, showing contempt for its legal system and seeking to split the nation by provoking social strife. “Every Chinese can sense a deliberate maliciousness in doing so,” it said.
The English-language version of the same newspaper expanded on the theme, quoting an international relations professor at Renmin University, who said that the decision to select Mr. Liu for the prize was intended to humiliate China. “Such a decision will not only draw the ire of the Chinese public, but also damage the reputation of the prize,” said the professor, Shi Yinhong.
On Friday night, scores of journalists gathered outside Mr. Liu’s home, but the police refused to allow his wife, Liu Xia, to come out and would not let reporters enter. The police later led her away, promising to escort her to Jinzhou Prison, 300 miles away in Liaoning Province, to see her husband.
Ms. Liu’s brother said that she had spoken to family members on Saturday and that she would be seeing her husband on Sunday. Calls to Ms. Liu’s cellphone went unanswered on Saturday, and friends expressed concern because they could not reach her.
In an interview last week, Ms. Liu said she had little expectation that her husband would win the prize but said that if he did, she hoped it might prompt the authorities to release him earlier. “As my friends have said, how can they keep a Nobel Peace Prize in Jinzhou Prison?” she said.
Few Chinese citizens seemed aware of the honor accorded Mr. Liu, even 24 hours after its announcement. “Never heard of him, but we also haven’t watched TV recently,” said Yang Guwen, dressed in a denim cowboy shirt, as he and his girlfriend walked beneath a huge television screen that hangs over one of the capital’s ritziest shopping malls.
Had he followed news reports, Mr. Yang would not have learned that a Chinese citizen had won one of the world’s most respected prizes. Except for the Global Times editorial and a brief Foreign Ministry condemnation posted on the Internet, Chinese newspapers and Web-based portals ignored the news. Anyone typing the words “Nobel Peace Prize” or “Liu Xiaobo” into Google found themselves facing a blank screen.
A veteran civil rights lawyer, Teng Biao, said he was on his way to meet a foreign journalist on Saturday when he was stopped by national security agents at the Beijing university where he teaches. “The officers say that the police have rigid orders from higher authorities that they must work resolutely to thwart celebratory activities to mark this event,” he said in a cellphone interview, having briefly stepped away from the agents to take a call. “They are keeping a strict eye on the most active people, in order to reduce its impact to the smallest degree possible.”
The activists who gathered for the celebratory meal on Friday night were no stranger to police surveillance. Earlier in the evening, they had met in a park with yellow ribbons pinned to their shirts and clear plastic sleeves — the kinds favored by conventioneers — slung around their necks. The sleeves carried two portraits of Mr. Liu: one dark and somber, the other brightly lighted and decidedly cheery.
When word of the Nobel Prize arrived, they turned the happy photo to face out, walked to the restaurant and tacked a portrait of Mr. Liu on a wall. By the time Paul Mooney, a reporter with the newspaper South China Morning Post in Hong Kong, arrived, the police had already shown up.
After a brief scuffle, the men and women were led away, leaving Mr. Mooney alone with a roomful of police and the crumpled portrait of the Nobel Prize winner on the floor. Out of curiosity, he asked the young officers if they were familiar with Mr. Liu. “None of them even knew who he was,” he said.
A version of this article appeared in print on October 10, 2010, on page A12 of the New York edition.
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China state press say dissident Nobel shows West's fear
BEIJING |
BEIJING (Reuters) - The Nobel Peace Prize for Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo showed the West cannot stomach the idea of China's rise, state-run newspapers said on Monday, adding to the government's furious condemnation of the award.
Beijing called Friday's award to Liu an "obscenity".
Some state-controlled newspapers said it showed a prejudiced West afraid of China's rising wealth and power.
"The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to 'dissident' Liu Xiaobo was nothing more than another expression of this prejudice, and behind it lies an extraordinary terror of China's rise and the Chinese model," said the Global Times, a popular Chinese-language tabloid that has led the media charge against the Nobel decision.
If Liu's calls for a multi-party democracy in China were followed, a commentary in the paper said: "China's fate would perhaps be no better than the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, and the country probably would have quickly collapsed".
Liu, 54, has been a thorn in the government's side since 1989 when he joined student protesters on a hunger strike days before the army crushed the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy movement, and has been in and out of jail ever since for his campaigning for freedom of speech and political liberalisation.
His lawyer, Shang Baojun, told Reuters that he had been unable to contact Liu's wife, Liu Xia.
"I don't have any direct news," said Shang. "She's probably at home with communications cut off, under surveillance -- she's called it house arrest," he said, citing messages circulated on the Internet.
On Friday, the Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee, a policy-setting council that usually meets once a year, gathers for a meeting, adding to the net of security across Beijing.
Many signers of the "Charter 08" petition which called for sweeping political reforms have either been locked away, put under house arrest or otherwise harassed, perhaps the most famous of whom is Liu, jailed last Christmas day for 11 years.
The Ta Kung Pao, a Beijing-run Hong Kong-based newspaper, dismissed the award for Liu as "black humour" that showed the Nobel Peace Prize lacked seriousness.
"This kind of Nobel Peace Prize is no better than scrap paper," it said.
(Editing by Jonathan Thatcher)
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