The wife of an outspoken Chinese dissident who has been jailed for a year without charge said yesterday if the government won’t release him she wishes it would put him on trial so she could visit him regularly.
Liu Xia (劉霞) has not seen or spoken to her husband Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波) since March when police arranged a short meeting for the couple in a Beijing hotel room.
Police took Liu Xiaobo away on Dec. 8 last year, one day before the publication of a document he co-authored that called for more civil rights in China and an end to the Chinese Communist Party’s political dominance.
About 10,000 people have since signed “Charter 08,” an unusually direct call for a new constitution guaranteeing human rights, the open election of public officials, and freedom of religion and expression. Many Chinese dissidents and intellectuals know about the project but tight media controls and Internet censorship have limited its reach.
Web sites that mention or post the charter are routinely deleted or blocked. The document and international calls for Liu Xiaobo’s release — including an appeal by 150 writers and rights activists including Salman Rushdie, Nadine Gordimer and Wole Soyinka — have not been covered by state media. Human rights groups say people in provinces around the country who signed the statement have been summoned or tailed by police.
Liu Xiaobo, 53, is a former professor who spent 20 months in jail for joining the 1989 student-led protests in Tiananmen Square. Credited as the chief architect of the charter, he has been the only one arrested — seen as a move by authorities to scare other signatories into backing off.
He was held at a secret location for six months, then formally arrested in June on suspicion of “inciting to subvert state power” — a loosely defined charge that carries a maximum sentence of 15 years.
“Of course, I would like there to be a miracle and to have him come home tomorrow,” said Liu Xia, a rail-thin 48-year-old poet and painter.
She said she was not optimistic that her husband would be released when the investigation is complete, and now wishes that he could be quickly tried.
“For me, I will be less anxious [when he is sentenced] because at least I will be able to see him once a month, to write him letters and bring him books,” she said.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not