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3
May World Press Freedom Day 2008
China
Campaign: Writers React
International
PEN’s Writers in Prison Committee is marking this year’s World Press
Freedom Day (3 May) by focussing on the case of Chinese poet and journalist
Shi Tao, who is serving a 10-year prison sentence on the charge of
“revealing state secrets abroad”.
Shi
Tao was convicted for an email he sent to an overseas website using a Yahoo!
email account after Yahoo! provided the Chinese authorities with his
identity. International
PEN considers his conviction to be in contravention to Article 19 of the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (to which China became
a signatory
in 1998) and Article 19 of the Declaration of Human Rights.Shi
Tao is one of the dissident writers whose downfall was the advanced
technology used to monitor, survey and track down individuals who are seen
to violate Chinese laws by exercising their freedom of expression on the
internet.
The
year 2004 marked the fifteenth anniversary of the military crackdown on
pro-democracy protestors in Tiananmen Square, in which hundreds of people
were reportedly killed. Fearing that the anniversary might trigger fresh
pro-reform demonstrations, the Chinese authorities imposed a number of
pre-emptive measures including a set of media restrictions designed to keep
all discussion of the anniversary out of the public arena. On 20 April 2004,
Shi Tao, who worked as a journalist with the Contemporary
Business News (Dangdai Shang Bao) and as head of its news division until
May 2004,
attended a staff meeting at which an official document containing details of
these restrictions was circulated. Shi took notes of the meeting and that
evening, from his office, used his personal Yahoo! account to send a summary
of the document to the editor of the New York-based Minzhu
Luntan (Democracy Forum), a
dissident news website that is banned in China, and Minzhu
Tongxun (Democracy Communication),
an e-mail-based information network. In doing so, he used the pen-name
“198964” – the date of the crackdown. Shi's notes were then
distributed through Minzhu Tongxun under this pen name and later posted on
other web sites.
The
Chinese authorities did not take action against Shi immediately, and he was
able to leave Dangdai Shang Bao in
May 2004 to embark upon a career as a freelance journalist and writer.
However, this new career was cut short when officials
from the Changsha security bureau detained him near his home in Taiyuan,
Shanxi Province on 24 November 2004 as part of a broader crackdown on
writers, journalists and intellectuals.
According to court documents, Yahoo! (Hong Kong) Holdings Ltd provided the
Chinese authorities with Shi Tao's identity, information which was then used
to prosecute and convict him.
Shi
Tao, aged 37, is a
widely published poet whose work has been featured in well-respected
state-run literary journals with a national readership. While Shi’s work
has never been featured in a major anthology, he has published several
collections of poetry, including ‘Borders of Heaven', which was published
by Shanxi People's Publishing House in 2002. Translator Heather Inwood notes
that Shi’s poetry appears to be strongly influenced by his involvement in
pro-democracy and freedom of speech movements, with many of his poems
‘full of anger, death, blackness, blood and violence.’ He is also known
for his social commentaries published on overseas Chinese language media
such as Democracy Forum (www.boxun.com).
For
the first two years of his detention Shi Tao was held at the high-security
Chishan prison in Hunan Province, where he had to do forced labour in a
jewelry factory. According to his family, Shi Tao was among the many inmates
there to suffer from pneumonia or other respiratory ailments as a result of
the production process of cutting and polishing jewels. Shi Tao also has a
history of ulcers and heart problems, and there were serious concerns for
his health. He was transferred to Deshan prison in June 2007, where he no
longer has to do hard labour and his health is said to have improved.
Shi
Tao’s poem ‘June’ was written on June 9, 2004, shortly after the 15th
anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests and just three months after Shi
Tao sent that fateful email. The poem is the focus of the International PEN
Poem Relay, which takes its cue from the Olympic Torch Relay itinerary and
seeks to raise awareness about freedom of expression in China through poetry
and translation. PEN Centres around the world have translated and recorded
“June” in more than 60 languages and, using the internet as its main
instrument, the poem is virtually “travelling” around the world, from
centre to centre, language to language, adding new translations as it goes
and ending in Beijing for the 2008 Olympics. Go to www.penpoemrelay.org to follow the
poem’s progress.
Writings
‘June’
My
whole life
Will
never get past “June”
June,
when my heart died
When
my poetry died
When
my lover
Died
in an abandoned pool of blood
June,
the scorching sun burns open my skin
Revealing
the true nature of my wound
June,
the little fish swims out of the blood-red sea
Toward
another place to hibernate
June,
the earth changes shape, the river falls silent
Piled
up letters unable to be delivered to the dead
9
June 2004. Translated from the Chinese by Chip Rolley of Sidney PEN.
‘Flies
and Tigers, Fish and Bicycles – Some Thoughts on Reading
A
Harbinger of History (part 10 of 10)’
translated by Roberta Raine can be found at: http://www.hrichina.org/public/highlight/writings/flies.html
‘Pain’
and ‘Heretical Theories’
translated by Sarah Maguire and Heather Inwood can be found at:
http://books.guardian.co.uk/voicesofprotest/story/0,16811,1644861,00.html
RECOMMENDED
ACTIONS
Please
send appeals to the Chinese authorities:
-
Protesting
the detention of journalist, poet and dissident writer Shi Tao and calling
for his immediate and unconditional release in accordance with Article 19 of
the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
-
Expressing
concern about Shi Tao’s health, and seeking assurances that he is treated
humanely in prison and urging that he receive any necessary medical
treatment.
-
Urging
the Chinese authorities to show their commitment to press freedom in China
in the approach to the Beijing Olympics in August 2008 by releasing all
writers and journalists detained in China for peacefully exercising their
right to free expression.
Government
addresses:
His
Excellency Hu Jintao
President
of the People’s Republic of China
State
Council
Beijing
100032
P.R.China.
Her
Excellency Ms. Wu Aiying
Minister
of Justice
10
Chaoyangmen Nandajie
Chaoyang-qu
Beijing-shi
100020
P.R.China.
Please
note that fax numbers are no longer available for the Chinese authorities,
so you may wish to ask the diplomatic representative for China in your
country to forward your appeals.
Please
copy appeals to the diplomatic representative for China in your country if
possible.
PRESS
Centres
are encouraged to use the material provided to publicise the case of Shi
Tao, the International PEN Poem Relay and the issue of press freedom in
China in their local press.
Centres
are encouraged to consider Shi Tao for honorary membership.
For
further information please contact Cathy McCann at International PEN Writers
in Prison Committee, Brownlow House, 50/51 High Holborn, London WC1V 6ER,
Tel.+ 44 (0) 20 7405 0338, Fax: +44 (0) 20 7405 0339, email:
cathy.mccann@internationalpen.org.uk