More than 100 authors from around the world yesterday — Human Rights Day — signed a letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to urge an immediate end to China’s “worsening crackdown” on rights, a global writers group said.
Since he came to power in 2012, Xi has overseen a crackdown on dissent, with hundreds of lawyers, rights advocates and academics detained and dozens jailed.
The Chinese Communist Party tolerates no opposition to its rule. Newspapers, Web sites and other broadcast and print media are strictly controlled. Censors patrols social media and many Western news sites are blocked.
“China and the rest of the world can only be enriched by these opinions and voices,” said the letter, organized by the London-based PEN International writers’ association, which advocates free speech.
“We therefore urge the Chinese authorities to release the writers, journalists and activists who are languishing in jail or kept under house arrest for the crime of speaking freely and expressing their opinions,” it said.
Signed by writers including Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood and Nobel laureate J.M. Coetzee, the letter mentioned imprisoned Nobel Peace laureate Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波), currently serving an 11-year sentence for “subversion,” and his wife, Liu Xia (劉霞), who remains under house arrest.
It also referenced, among others, academic Ilham Tohti, who is serving a life sentence for “separatism” for his criticism of Beijing’s policies toward the mostly Muslim Uighur minority.
More than a dozen members or honorary members of the organization’s China-focused chapter, the Independent Chinese PEN Center, were currently imprisoned or persecuted, it said.
“The enforced silence of these friends and colleagues is deafening, and the disappearance of their voices has left a world worse off for this egregious injustice and loss,” the letter said.
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