CHINA HAS jailed its most prominent democracy activist, Liu Xiaobo, for 11 years for conspiring to subvert the Chinese state. It is the longest sentence ever given out for dissent, and a sign the Communist Party is not willing to relax its grip on power.
Like so much of the pro-democracy movement in China, this is being played out on the internet. In one web posting, a student wrote of how she stood in the cold to make her protest to the harsh sentence. A policeman took her ID card and she was questioned. Later an older policeman returned her card. “It’s a cold day. Why do you bother?” the policemen said.
The court decision on Christmas Day prompted a flurry of international criticism, but has also raised the question about how much China cares about criticism from abroad. The hefty sentence for Mr Liu, who turns 54 today, is a tough message to anyone seeking free speech or democratic reform in China.
Mr Liu’s Charter 08 is the closest thing to a pro-democracy movement that China has seen for years. It has called for a constitution guaranteeing human rights, the open election of public officials and freedom of religion and expression.
Taiwan’s president Ma Ying-jeou called on Chinese authorities to tolerate political opponents after they jailed Mr Liu. Mr Ma has been pursuing a pro-China policy but his platform has always been a democratic one.
Mr Liu is a soft-spoken, intellectual type of person, with a wry sense of humour but a strong commitment to his democratic beliefs, a man long resigned to the inevitability that his principles would land him in jail again.
The sentence was handed down by the No 1 Intermediate People’s Court in Beijing after a two-hour trial on Wednesday. Mr Liu was charged with “serious” crimes. The charge of subverting state power is a vague one, and is used routinely to jail dissidents, carrying a potential 15-year sentence.
The text of Charter 08 includes a direct reference to the events of 1989 as an example of the “long trail of human rights disasters” caused by the Communist Party’s monopoly on power. About 10,000 people have signed the document since it was released.
The courts are in effect run by the Communist Party and were never likely to disagree with the prosecution’s arguments, especially in a politically sensitive case like Liu Xiaobo’s.
He was detained a year ago, just before the release of the charter.
Mr Liu previously spent nearly two years in jail for joining the 1989 student-led protests in Tiananmen Square. He also prevented more bloodshed by successfully negotiating with the army the evacuation of the last remaining students on the square in the early morning of June 4th. He has remained a constant thorn in the side of the central government in Beijing with his calls for greater democracy in China.
The US state department called on China to release Mr Liu, while German chancellor Angela Merkel said she was “dismayed” by the sentence.
The United Nations said Mr Liu’s conviction had thrown “an ominous shadow” over China’s commitments to human rights.
Those who support his cause, and that of the Charter 08 movement, wear yellow ribbons to show their allegiance.
One blogger wrote that the yellow ribbons are to show “support and shared responsibility for Liu, who is a brave man who was sued for the practice of the natural rights of free speech”.
At the same time, the severity of the sentence shows that China is basically indifferent to what the West thinks about how it runs its political system.
It has a strong economy and it believes that its form of authoritarian rule is the best way to help China advance.
China has made huge advances during 30 years of reform, and its people are freer now than ever, but they have little freedom in the way of political rights.