Charter 08 challenges Communist rule

CHINA: Dissidents sign up to document calling for human rights
From Bill Allan in Beijing
POLITICAL DEMOCRATISATION cannot be delayed any longer," said one of the many bold statements issued by Chinese dissidents in one of the biggest open challenges to China's ruling Communist Party since the 1989 pro-democracy protests in Beijing's Tiananmen Square.

 

The 303 signatories of "Charter 08" last week set out their ideals for transforming China into a liberal democracy, lamenting a lack of "freedom, equality and human rights".

 

"By departing from universal values and a basic political framework, modernisation' has been a disastrous process that has stripped people of their rights, corrupted normal human feelings and destroyed people's dignity," they said.

 

The charter demands a series of sweeping changes to create a "free, democratic and constitutional state", and urges the release of all political prisoners.

 

It is modelled on the Charter 77 written by intellectuals in the former Czechoslovakia. It links its blueprint for change to China's 1989 democracy movement, which the party quashed with a brutal military crackdown.

 

Backed by hundreds of leading Chinese dissidents, rights activists, lawyers and intellectuals, Charter 08 reflects an unprecedented union of those opposed to one-party rule.

 

The signatories cover most provinces in the country, and a range of occupations: academics, artists, writers, lawyers, journalists, doctors, farmers, engineers. The list also includes several state employees.

 

Signatory Mo Shaoping, a top lawyer who represents many dissidents, said he agreed with the charter's principles "because they are universal values and people all recognise them".

 

"It articulated what all social strata want to say," added Zeng Jinyan, a rights activist who put her name to the charter despite being held under virtual house arrest in Beijing.

 

Zeng's husband, fellow dissident Hu Jia, was presented in absentia with the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought on Thursday. China sentenced Hu to three and a half years in prison in March for "inciting subversion of state power".

 

Liu Xiaobo, a veteran dissident writer accused of being the main organiser of Charter 08, is under arrest in Beijing and he is believed to face the same subversion charge as Hu.

 

Some 1200 Chinese activists and intellectuals put their names to a petition calling for Liu's release. Western rights advocates, lawyers and academics plan to send an open letter urging President Hu Jintao to free Liu.

 

Former Czech Republic president Vaclav Havel, who had signed Charter 77 as a dissident writer, also called for Liu's release on Friday.

 

"The Chinese government should learn well the lesson of the Charter 77 movement: that intimidation, propaganda campaigns and repression are no substitute for reasoned dialogue," Havel wrote in the online edition of the Wall Street Journal.

 

Havel called Charter 08 "impressive", but he said "China in 2008 is not Czechoslovakia in 1977".

 

"In many ways, China today is freer and more open than my own country of 30 years ago," he wrote. "And yet, the response of the Chinese authorities to Charter 08 in many ways parallels the Czechoslovak government's response to Charter 77."

 

Apart from Liu, police have reportedly questioned or detained many other signatories. Zeng, 25, said police asked if she had read the charter and if she was "aware of the gravity of signing".

 

"One suggestion: think about this matter; after all, Hu Jia is still in prison," Zeng's blog quoted one of her interrogators as saying.

 

Sophie Richardson, the Asia advocacy director of Human Rights Watch said: "By affixing their names to the Charter the signatories knew they would face official retribution. Their courage must be recognised, and their actions defended."

 

Some activists said police had not questioned them and the authorities have so far refrained from a mass round-up of the signatories.

 

"I think the government is a little frightened of arresting so many people," said Yao Lifa, a legal activist and charter signatory from the central province of Hubei.

 

The signatories include Bao Tong, a former top aide to Zhao Ziyang. Ziyang was purged from his post of general secretary of the Communist Party in 1989 after he opposed the use of force against the pro-democracy protesters.

 

Another name attached to the document is Ding Zilin, a retired professor whose son died in 1989. Ding leads the Tiananmen Mothers, an informal group of dozens of relatives and supporters of victims of the military crackdown.

 

The original 303 Charter 08 dissidents were joined by a second group of several hundred more Chinese supporters inside and outside the country.

 

Among them was exiled dissident Wang Dan, now a US-based scholar, who was a leader of the 1989 protests and a founder of the China Democracy Party.

 

Some online English versions of the charter were accessible in China this week, but the state's "Great Firewall" appears to have ensured that relatively few ordinary Chinese people have seen it.

 

"I guess that means the government is succeeding in keeping any mention of Charter 08 off popular websites," Zeng said.

 

Yet like other sensitive documents, the charter seems certain to filter through to many more Chinese internet users via email, chatrooms and blogs in the coming months. The dissidents are prepared to bide their time.

 

Despite Hu's jailing, her own house arrest and the crackdown on leading Charter 08 signatories, Zeng Jinyan remains upbeat about the long-term prospects of the democracy movement. "There are some difficulties, but ultimately I'm still optimistic," she said.