Human rights award for Liu Xiaobo and for Charter 08
ICC Note:
A human rights activists and signer of Charter 08 (together with 302 others who signed the document calling for human rights and democracy in China) has been honored with a human rights award by the People in Need Foundation.
_______________________
3/13/09 China (AsiaNews) The dissident Liu Xiaobo, who has been under house arrest since December, was honored yesterday with the Homo Homini Award, given each year by the People in Need Foundation, a European organization, to people who have distinguished themselves in the struggle for human rights.
Liu Xiaobo was honored together with 302 other scholars and personalities who signed the document Charter 08, published on December 9 to ask Beijing for more democracy and respect for human rights. The document was immediately censored in China, and websites that published it have been blocked, but over a few days it was endorsed by more than 8,000 people, including officials of the Communist Party who are convinced that change is necessary. Many of the signers have been interrogated by the police, and Liu was arrested.
…
Meanwhile, on March 11 the family of the Chinese lawyer Gao Zhisheng arrived in the United States. Gao is known for his struggle for human rights, and disappeared weeks ago. He was nominated for the 2008 Nobel Peace Prize.
Geng He, his wife, told Radio Free Asia yesterday that her husband was tortured. Gao was a member of the Communist Party, and in 2001 he was praised by the Chinese justice ministry as one of the 10 best lawyers in the country. Then he defended the rights of miners, underground Christians, and followers of Falun Gong against the authorities. In 2007, he wrote an open letter to the U.S. Congress, but afterward he was arrested and tortured for weeks, including electric shocks to his genitals and cigarette burns on his body.
