E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
PETER PARKS / AFP - Getty Images
A plainclothes policeman gestures to a photographer outside the house of jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo, the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner, in Beijing Wednesday.
By NBC News’ Adrienne Mong and Bo Gu
BEIJING – Liu Xia has been under house arrest since Oct. 8 – when her husband, Liu Xiaobo, won the Nobel Peace Prize. Her detention started after she was allowed to pay him a brief visit at the Jinzhou Jail in northeastern China.
On Oct. 24, Liu Xia issued an open letter thanking the Nobel Prize Committee and supporters of Charter 08, a manifesto her husband wrote calling for political reform and democratization in China that was signed by more than 350 Chinese intellectuals and human rights activists.
“Liu Xiaobo said this prize goes to all the dead spirits at Tiananmen Square, and I think the prize also goes to everyone, every fearless Chinese who protects their dignities,” wrote Liu Xia.
Under strict surveillance and with no possibility of traveling to Oslo, Norway, to collect the Nobel Peace Prize on Friday on behalf of her husband, she invited 144 people to attend the ceremony in their place. Among those invited were Liu’s friends and lawyers, those who signed Charter 08, renowned artists, intellectuals, and political dissidents.
The Chinese government’s response came swiftly. Liu Xia lost all means of communications with the outside world after her last tweet on Oct.18.
But she’s not the only one whose communication and freedom of movement has been curtailed. Dozens of Netizens have been harassed by the police for circulating news online or celebrating Liu’s prize. People considered to be influential activists have been placed under house arrest, including the writer Yu Jie, who openly criticized Premier Wen Jiabao; Ding Zilin, leader of the Tiananmen Mothers campaign; and Chen Guangcheng, a blind activist who was just recently released from prison.
And the list doesn’t end there. People even suspected of being potential Oslo attendees – whether or not they are on the list of the 144 people invited by Liu Xia – have been restricted from traveling outside of the country.
Friend or foe – you can’t go!
He Guanghu, a professor of religion at Renmin University, was one of the first to be stopped.
As he was traveling Nov. 19 to Singapore for a seminar, he was told by Chinese customs officials that his departure could “jeopardize state security” and a travel ban had been ordered by the Beijing Public Security Bureau. He was outraged and wrote on his personal blog that he reserves the right to sue the authorities. “If the people have no security, what’s the point of ‘state security?’”
It’s possible that officials suspected he could re-route his itinerary from Singapore to Norway, but it was impossible to understand why Mao Yushi, a revered 81-year-old economist, was not allowed to travel abroad.
Adrienne Mong / NBC News
Internationally renown artist Ai Weiwei Tweeted when he was prevented from boarding his international flight last week.
Mao is neither a friend of the Liu couple nor an invitee of Liu Xia’s. On Dec. 1, Mao was on his way to Singapore for a meeting on international development in the Himalayas. He, too, was stopped by customs officials and given the same excuse of “jeopardizing state security.”
“There’s only one goal for them to prevent people from leaving the country – to make the Nobel Peace Prize award look deserted,” Mao said during a phone interview with NBC News. “I have signed Charter 08. I’m sure that’s the reason I got stopped. This is the first time I’ve ever been banned from leaving China.”
Liu Xiaoyuan, a Beijing-based lawyer, also found out that he had been deemed a potentially dangerous enemy of the state when he tried to fly to Japan for an academic conference. Liu Xiaoyuan was not invited by Liu Xia and did not sign Charter 08, so he was confused why he wasn’t allowed to leave the country.
“They are just being paranoid and presume everyone leaving China is going to Oslo for the prize. This is just like the Cultural Revolution,” he said. When NBC News asked what the travel ban would do to China’s international reputation, Liu gave a frank answer, “They simply don’t care now.”
"They cannot stop people giving the prize to Liu Xiaobo, but they definitely think they can stop people attending the party," said Ai Weiwei, an internationally famous artist whose Sunflower Seeds exhibit is on view at the Tate Modern in London.
Ai and Mo Shaoping, a top lawyer who initially represented Liu Xiaobo, are two of the more prominent luminaries prevented from traveling overseas. Both men said they had been invited to attend the Oslo ceremony but had no plans to do so. Ai said he had even informed security officials in Beijing that he would not be present at the Nobel ceremony.
Regardless, last Friday, Ai was waiting to board a flight for Seoul, where he was to take part in a conference, when police officers told him his "travel may affect national security," he said.
The same thing happened to Mo when he tried to board a flight for London Nov. 9 to attend a lawyers’ conference. As with Ai, he said this was the first time he’s ever been blocked from traveling out of the country.
"What they've done to us has no factual or lawful support. We were going there for an academic seminar, which has nothing to do with national security," Mo said. "As a citizen, everyone has the right to leave the country ... We are going to sue them when the time is right."
HO / AFP - Getty Images
This file picture taken on March 14, 2005 shows 2010 Nobel peace laureate Liu Xiaobo in Guangzhou in southern China.
China throwing its own party
In addition to restricting the movement of activists, the government has waged its own PR campaign. A newly formed Chinese organization announced that it will award the “Confucius Peace Prize” so China can “promote its own view on peace and human rights to the world.” In a not-so-subtle dig, the award will be given out Thursday, a day before the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded in Oslo.
China has exerted diplomatic pressure on foreign embassies not to send representatives to the award ceremony. The Nobel committee said that out of the 65 invitations it sent out to embassies in Oslo – 19 countries have declined so far, including China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Cuba, Pakistan, Iraq and Iran.
And Chinese citizens living in Norway have also being subjected to Beijing’s lobbying efforts. Geir Lundestad, of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, told the Hong Kong-based newspaper the Apple Daily, that he had received calls from Chinese living in Oslo who said that they were encouraged by the Chinese embassy to protest the award.
A throwback to a more repressive era
Beijing’s widespread and blunt reaction to the Nobel Prize raises concerns of a return to a more repressive era, raising the specter of the Tiananmen Square crackdown in June 1989.
“[The Nobel ceremony] is an event that has really catalyzed the Chinese government in terms of attempting to prevent participation and expression of its own citizens at some event overseas," said Phelim Kine, an Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch. “It's unprecedented in terms of recent history, particularly since Chinese citizens' rights to travel and ability to get passports to leave the country has been one of those rights and freedoms that the Chinese government has granted in recent years."
The Chinese government's heavy-handed response betrays some of its larger suspicions – more strident coverage in the state-run media and on blogs claims that the prize is part of a U.S.-led grand design to humiliate China.
"This award has been interpreted as an overseas smear on the Chinese government," Kine said. "It's responding as if under attack."
And yet Beijing's handling of the Nobel Peace Prize fits a pattern.
"We have been chronicling an ongoing tightening since 2008. There's less space for non-governmental organizations, civil society, and things have worsened significantly since the international financial crisis," said Kine.
That China emerged from the financial crisis with its economy relatively intact has fueled a sense of triumphalism, according to a diverse group of business groups, diplomats, and activists. "There's less of a sense that [Chinese officials] have to obey by the same old rules," said Kine.
“They’ve got money now, and money can make many things happen. But it’s not very appropriate that it is the taxpayers’ money they are using,” said Mao, the economist.
But if China wants to be a responsible stakeholder, as many of its own citizens desire, it must stop being such a bully, activists say.
"China as a big country should act as a big country," said Mo, the lawyer.
Leave a Comment:
What do we want from you? To treat your own people humanely. To have STANDARDS of quality assurance that don't include lead paint, tainted food. If we MUST have everything from our clothes to our dog food MADE in CHINA---for heaven's sake CLEAN UP your facilities.
I don't want to see bloodied and bruised and jailed people, just because they are Christians---but GOD will handle your nation on that, trust me! I want Religious freedom, I want freedom, period. Why are you so restrictive? WHat are you afraid of from your own people that you can not allow them to be free?
And last but not least when you have 36 items in a box, EVERY last one of them do NOT have to have those little gold MADE IN CHINA stickers on them---we get the picture---you're the next Japan. You will soon own us. And for THAT--I blame our own government.
and we are into them for trillions.
The towns I stayed in had a MAJORITY of unhappy citizens. The reason you only hear from "happy" chinese people is because those are the only ones not incarcerated or sent to state hospitals. Talk about the amount of "patients" in government and privately owned hospitals and the number of prisoners grows substantially. Unhappy Chinese citizens are "silenced" rather than being heard,... this is why there are so few accounts from unhappy chinese. Silenced by being institutionalized for "being a nuisance" rather than being heard. NEVER compare the "enlightened" Chinese government to your so-called "opressive" American government, because for every bit the americans have it wrong, the Chinese have something wrong ten-fold.
Try and deceive with your "numbers" again mr. Code, and I shall return to spread light on your follies.
It's time for Norway stop that BS prize thing. It's total joke. Be real! Why don't Norwegian have a party with that money and enjoy themselves? Stay out of politics. Change of totalitarian politics requires blood. Need someone like Oliver Cromwell. It is a long way to go for China. Superstition and corruption is part of five thousand year old Chinese culture which will not go away easy. Over one billion with that culture I wonder how democracy will work out. Just keep fighting and slow process with less blood might be optimal way to go.
The way I understand communism is commune. Because people are so poor, so they collect individual fortunes together and then give out equal share to each person. The way I understand the real world now is if your have a stock market, captitalism, economic power and privatisation, how can you be a communistic country.
Not surprising behavior from a communist totalitarian regime.
Old habits die hard.
Ok here's the deal Im new to comment boards but will tell the world this I AM RIGHT. I do not care what way you try to get around anything I say you are wasting your time. I have an IQ of nearly 170 and through years of extreme alcoholism(and surviving 17 years of hell with now over 5 years sober), world travel, extensive research and reading I have aquired an inner peace and clarity that allows me to be RIGHT 99.9% of the time PERIOD! So were to start on China. First its to late to cry now about there practices. We as a country have treated them and forced other countries to treat them as we here in the USA now treat our childern with the attitude of "warning you" well as a country we are now realizing that just warning our children does work and they are at an ever growing rate staying home with mom and dad and just being irresponsible. The goverment there is not our concern that subject alot of you will disagree with TRUST ME YOUR WRONG! What is our concern is that we are now buying about 5 or 6 times the goods from them than they are buying from us! HELLO FOOLS WAKE UP! The money will run out AMERICA what are you gonna do when the DHHR does'nt have any more money to pay your light bill or buy your food? The United States of America still is the richest country in the world and one big problem is our countries super rich who think that because they have money that there ideas are the right ones. I say QUIT giving ANY of our grain away. Make it illegal for the Bono's to take our money and give it away. I am not heartless what I am saying is WAKE UP AMERICA fix things here first and foremost. If a company wants to say give Sounth Korea or China or India or ANY other country or organization outside this country ANY FOOD OR MONEY Imprison them! VOTE and get these dummies we have in office out ALL OF THEM. PEOPLE its time to wake up as a country and stop this crap. How many of you sit around and say "why" at so much of the dumb crap you here like N.Korea and nukes. Whats so hard here THEY WILL KILL US 1st chance they get. QUIT playing around and do what ever it takes to eliminate this threat. COME ON GET REAL! This is just an example of the "why's" Like this "why" WHY IN THE HELL would you even pick something up with "made in China" on it are you STUPID?
I'll have a shot of Jagermeister to that, brother! Best of luck to you and the Mensa boys...
Well worth noting--the 1935 Nobel Peace Prize winner was Carl von Ossietzsky who similarly could not accept the award because he happened to be in a Nazi concentration camp at the time. Hope the identical situation 65 years later now being experienced by Liu ends there because Ossietzsky died in his camp in 1938.
make that 75 years!
So China has half the amount of inmates incarcerated as the United States (2.4 mil. vrs 1.4 mil.) yet it executes 34 times as many individuals. Yeah, sounds like they're doing great things over there. Would love to experience that judicial system up close and personal. Kind of reminds me of.. whats the word im looking for? Oh yeah, the Nazi's. Targetings the intellectuals and all the flow of information.
Also, do you know how they execute them? Lethal injection?
Nope, sorry, try two in the chest, one in the head. They're leading the charge on human rights alright.
And its a democracy with one party? Thats kind of oxymoronic, isn't it? Like a tournament with 1 team? Gee I wonder who's gonna win?
And yeah, it's obvious way to many people are in prison in the USA, i'm not arguing that. Let all the non-violent offenders out for all I care. Drugs should be legal. It's the war on drugs that is putting everyone in prison. But that hardly excuses China's behavior.
How far are we going to worry about some others' internal affair? Are we trying to change the whole world? Look at them with their eyes. It is not the change but the changing rate of change. It takes time.
You maybe really know Mr. Liu's idea. Mr. Liu Xiaobo had openly stated that China need at least 300 years of colonial rule by the West and should abandon Chinese Culture so that it could reach the level of Hong Kong. Many Chinese viewed the award of the Nobel Prize another western plot against China. Some Chinese viewed Liu as a Hanjian (traitor of the Han Nation) and considered his sentence too lenient. So Chinese said that 中国是一个盛产汉奸的民族!
Shame on Liu Xiaobo.
Shame on you for condoning the imprisonment of a man who is trying to change the PRC using peaceful means. Mr. Liu has the courage of his convictions and he is unafraid to act upon them. You, however, have merely crawled out from under your rock to criticize him but not call for an end of his illegal and inappropriate imprisonment. Therefore, Mr. Liu is a hero to millions and you are only another whining voice of cowardice.
Congratulations to Mr. Liu despite the efforts of the PRC government to muffle him.
Congratulations to Mr. Liu as a Hanjian (traitor of the Han Nation)!!!
Ah, my UnfairChineseFriend, Mr. Liu's courage to stand up to the CCP is far more laudable than your cowardly taunts. You, who have no shame and less bravery, must find it far easier to cower in his shadow than to find the guts to give him the respect he justly deserves.
You might be excused, however, because respect is something with which you have no first hand experience.
Shame!
Boy BefairtoChina!your post towards mr. Liu says it all. gotta point Sailcat he's as cowardly as the rest of their screwed up government.i think he might be one of the .50centers.it's a cheap labor propaganda club the government uses for ya know, their BS propaganda.he or she is anoutstanding member.
Well said, Gloria!
In a related story, the US cracks down Wikileaks
Keep the door open. The commitee can hold the banquet and hand out the the prize whenever someone representing Xia arrives. China will have to stop all their people from leaving the country indefinately.
Julian Assange of Wikileaks should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to increase transparency on human rights, and exposing the lies and hyprocrisy of US diplomats...But then, the Nobel Committee will never do that because it is now considered to be a branch of the US State Department.
I read a lot of words to describe the Chinese, brutal, ass holes etc. Did any one who attack the Chinese check for reality? Who is Nobel? Inventor of explosive that the west use to kill millions for money. Whole race, culture were wiped out, what can be put on ships were looted, What cannot were burned to the ground. Evidence still exist in Beijing. Why the west love to accuse the victims? To have moral excuse for their brutality. The Nobel money is therefor blood money much like the blood diamond.
Freedom of speech? Look at WiliLeaks. That is on going brutality by western governments. It is a brutal attack on freedom of speech so bragged about when it is used to attack the Chinese. WiliLeaks unfortunately leak sensitive information on the ruthlessness of US government that is why it is so damaging. That is why it is prosecuted to the limit of the law and beyond. Looks like Guantanamo Bay has new inmates. One more reason to keep that place going so US can do at will what they cannot show the rest of the world. So before you point an accusing finger look at yourself first. Don't blame every western atrocities on the Chinese
Hey Lee..how much PLA paying you to post on these boards you communist moron ?!
China is an oppressive regime .
And these are the people who are about to pay for the Koch Brothers' bonus tax cut.
Chinese people are bunch of slaves....!
Feeling a bit insecure, President Hu?
I am Chinese.
For anyone who are non-Chinese and support the Communist government---you are an idiot.
For any Chinese who support the Communist government---you are 白痴 too
My family has suffered under the rule of Chairman Mao and Vice Premier Liu
Ask any old Chinese person and he or she will tell you the truth.
Hey! Brother Shen:
I absolutely agree with you for every aspects. But democracy requires mature civility and consensus of social ethics from majority of population. China's long culture contrdicts to the process of democracy. I do not justiify communism for this reason but advising patience. You have to give up the traditional value of family over social justice and needs more logical way of thought than yin and yang oriented thinking. It is easy with small population and territory like HK and Singapor under the paternal leadership but mainland China is different story. China is heading right direction now. With less birth rate more people will have better education and higher recognition of social justice, eventually China will reach the point of critical mass to change the political structure without bleeding too much. You need people like Xiaobo absolutely. They are the momentum for the progress. But Nobel will not contribute nothing but stirring up the tranquility. Let Chinese take care of China for themselves, that is my point. I take Nobel lower than Oscar award.
You should be aware that a majority of the pro-chinese comments posted here are posted by paid employees of the Chinese government. Just like they do in China.
how can any chinese get a nobel prize? are they giving prizes for stealing or copying others work?
we need to stop patronizing china, stop buying their defective, dangerous, inferior, and poisonous products.
the companies that moved their manufacturing and other jobs to china should be put on trial for treason and are a national security threat, just to make fast profits.
they should manufacture in china for the chinese market and manufacture in western countries for the western countries markets. if they were any good managers, they could still make profit and keep the jobs where they belong and provide decent benefits to everyone, not just upper management.
When democracy is used as a political tool...Maybe the nature of democracy would change
as a chinese.i have many thing to say,but it is difficult indeed. everywhere are eyes of secret agents.
fishingman, you don't have to say anything for now just keep yourself, safe. don't let those evil people bother you. the world sees what goes on.just stay safe sir.