Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波), a prominent Chinese dissident who was sentenced to 11 years in jail by a Beijing court on Friday, said last year that he dreamed China could develop a democratic system similar to that in Taiwan.
Liu, who had been detained since December last year, was given the jail term on charges of “inciting subversion of state power,” a vague term that China uses to prosecute its dissidents.
In interviews before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Liu said he was very interested in Taiwan’s recent democratic development and that it could serve as “enlightenment or a model” for China.
“I’m very curious about what the younger generation in Taiwan has been thinking and doing, as this is an important indicator of the direction in which Taiwan will move,” he said.
Liu, who has been jailed several times as a political prisoner since 1989, has never shown any sign of cynicism or resentment, unlike many other persecuted Chinese dissidents.
“I know what I have been doing and what kind of cost I have to pay for that,” he told reporters in his small home in Beijing.
On the contrary, he expressed a great deal of tolerance toward the policemen who arrested him.
“The men who nabbed me are probably good fathers when they have their uniforms off at home,” Liu said.
Although Liu was 53 years old at the time, he said he and his wife had decided not to have a child.
“We are not against having a child, but rather we don’t dare have one, as human rights are never respected in China nowadays, so we have ‘a hundred reasons’ not to have one,” he said.
Liu was arrested last December on the eve of the release of “Charter 08,” a blueprint Liu co-authored with about 300 intellectuals across all spectrums of Chinese society that calls for an end to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) dominance of the government, military and courts, protection of freedom of speech and religious beliefs and implementation of constitutional democracy.
“Charter 08” is reported to have been signed by more than 10,000 people so far, many of whom are leading intellectuals in China.
In 1989, Liu cut short a visiting scholar program at Columbia University in the US to return to Beijing and join the hunger strike at Tiananmen Square that led to the bloody military crackdown known as the Tiananmen Massacre.
He was then detained at Qincheng Prison near Beijing on charges of “anti-revolution” for his role in the incident.
After his release in January 1991, Liu refused to go into exile and instead chose to stay at home to promote democratization. He was jailed again in May 1994 for more than six months for his appeals for justice for the victims of the 1989 massacre.
In October 1996, Liu was sent to a labor camp in Liaoning Province for three years after he advised a CCP congress session to launch a national anti-corruption drive.
His insistence on human rights and democracy has earned him numerous awards from Human Rights Watch, Reporters without Borders and other international organizations.
Liu’s latest sentence triggered outcry from international human rights organizations and Western countries, with the US pressing Beijing for his immediate release.
On Saturday President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) called on China to demonstrate “the greatest possible tolerance” toward its dissidents.
Human Rights Watch said that since 2003, China has sentenced more than 35 people on charges of inciting subversion of state power to prison terms ranging from one-and-a-half to 11 years, with Liu being the most severely punished.
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