Despite the typhoon, Hong Kong human rights campaigners and Chinese democracy movement leaders are to convene in Taipei today to commemorate late Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波) at an event hosted by pro-Taiwan independence groups.
Liu on July 13 died of multiple organ failure aged 61 in a hospital in Shenyang, China, where he was being treated for liver cancer.
The event would not be called off due to Typhoon Nesat, which made landfall in Yilan County last night, Taiwan United Nations Alliance spokesman Tseng Tsung Kai (曾宗愷) said.
Photo provided by Taiwan-UN
Exiled Chinese dissident and author Yu Jie (余杰), who cofounded the Independent Chinese PEN Center with Liu in 2001, is traveling from the US to attend the event, organizers said.
The commemoration was also organized by the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan, the Northern Society, the Taiwan Association for China Human Rights and the Taiwan Association of University Professors and is to take place at the Chinan Church near the Legislative Yuan.
Liu was in 2009 jailed for 11 years for “inciting subversion of state power” after he helped write a petition known as Charter 08, which called for sweeping political reforms.
In December 2010, Liu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his promotion of human rights in China.
Taiwanese, Chinese and Hong Kongers will today come together in Taiwan, because it is Asia’s best example of the promotion of human rights and democracy, Tseng said.
Liu winning the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to pursue human rights and democracy made him the pride of all Asians, Tseng added.
The alliance would push for the establishment of a “Liu Xiaobo Memorial Hall” and ask the government to designate July 13 as “Chinese Human Rights Day,” Tseng said.
Hong Kong pastor Lau Chi-hung (劉志雄), who in July 2014 was arrested for his involvement in the territory’s Occupy Central movement, is to lead participants in choral singing and discussing China’s oppression of Hong Kong’s freedoms and democracy.
Lau, an advocate of democratic political reform in Hong Kong, provided counseling to protesters who were arrested during the movement.
Alliance president and former minister of national defense Tsai Ming-shian (蔡明憲) said he hoped the event would send China and the rest of the world a message that respect for human rights knows no boundaries.
The event would also be a protest against China’s persecution of human rights activists such as Liu, Tsai added.
Beijing should immediately release Taiwanese human rights activist Lee Ming-che (李明哲), who has been detained by Chinese authorities since March 19, Tsai said.
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