World-wide effort calls for Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo's release

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HONG KONG, Dec. 5 Kyodo -
About 400 people took to the street in Hong Kong on Sunday as part of a
world-wide campaign calling on China to release Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu
Xiaobo who is in prison for subversion.
''China can't even allow Liu Xiaobo's peaceful calling for democracy, or Zhao
Lianhai's fight for fair compensation for the tainted milk victims,''
Democratic Party Chairman Albert Ho said before the march. ''That shows that
Beijing's promise of endorsing the rule of law was empty.''
Protests, marches and forums will also be held by concerned groups in North
American cities such as Vancouver, Toronto, Los Angeles, Boston and New York on
the same day, seeking Liu's release and human rights improvement in China.
''Release Liu Xiaobo, release Zhao Lianhai,'' protesters chanted as they
proceeded toward the Central Liaison Office, Beijing's representative in Hong
Kong, while carrying placards also calling for an end to one-party rule and for
a democratic China.
''The way Beijing handled Liu Xiaobo and other political dissidents is
shameful,'' social worker Helena Kwong, 33, said during the march. ''I may not
agree with everything in (Liu's) Charter 08, but democracy is certainly a
positive factor for building a civilized China.''
The march took about two hours and protesters tied yellow ribbons outside the
liaison office to commemorate Liu and other dissidents persecuted in China.
''Hong Kong people are ashamed of Beijing's decision to imprison Liu and place
his wife Liu Xia under house arrest,'' pro-democracy legislator Lee Cheuk-yan
said.
Lee and Ho were among several Hong Kong activists invited by Liu Xia to attend
the Nobel Peace Prize award ceremony in Oslo on behalf of herself and Liu next
Friday.
A former professor and democracy advocate who co-drafted the political reform
blueprint Charter 08 calling for democratization in China, Liu is serving an
11-year prison term for ''inciting subversion of state power.''
The Norwegian group awarded Liu the prize despite Beijing's political pressure
and threats it would harm the ties between the governments.
Beijing has also tried to dissuade other countries from attending the prize
award ceremony.
Liu's wife and dozens of dissidents who were invited by Liu Xia to attend the
ceremony on Liu's behalf have been placed under house arrest or barred from
leaving China.
Prominent figures, including human rights lawyer Mo Shaoping, economist Mao
Yushi and artist Ai Weiwei, were barred from leaving China for international
events unrelated to the Nobel ceremony.
Hong Kong, a former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997, has been
the only Chinese city to allow demonstrations that confront Beijing's one-party
rule and criticize its human rights abuse.
==Kyodo
2010-12-05 18:58:08