Peace Prize Criticized by Exiled Dissidents

The price can play into the Communist Party’s hands

Epoch Times Sweden [Source: translated]

This year’s Peace Prize has been criticized from both flanks. The Chinese communist regime has responded with strong censorship in China, international protests and threats against Norway on deteriorating relations. It wasn’t exactly unexpected.

On the opposite side stands the other Chinese dissidents, such as Wei Jingsheng, a resident of North America for several years and known to have demanded the democratization of China in 1978. Something he had to spend 18 years in Chinese prison for. Wei criticized Liu Xiaobo for being too cooperative with the Chinese regime. This is perhaps more surprising.

14 other exiled dissidents have also criticized that Liu Xiaobo gets the price since they think that he is unworthy. In a letter to the Norwegian Nobel Committee that was sent the days before the announcement, they were criticizing the choice of Liu Xiaobo as a prizewinner, because, among other things, they believe that he slanders other democracy activists, has abandoned the persecuted Falun Gong practitioners and that he is too soft on the Chinese leaders, according to New York Times.

Among those who signed the letter is Zhang Guoting, a writer who sat 22 years in a Chinese prison but who now lives in Denmark. Also Bian Hexiang, a New York-based member of the Central Committee of the Chinese Social Democratic Party and Lu Decheng, who was jailed for throwing paint-filled eggs on the large Mao portrait in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, and who now lives in Canada.

The writers of the letter says that there are other Chinese people who are much more deserving to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Such is human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng, who has defended, among others, oppressed Christians, Falun Gong practitioners and people who had their homes confiscated by the regime. He has sent several open letters to the country’s top leaders to protest against the conditions. Gao has been detained several times in recent years and has given evidence on the inhumane torture he has suffered.

Liu Xiaobo gets the prize, among other things, for having created the so-called democracy petition Charter 08 (which refers to Charter 77 who advocated reforms in communist Czechoslovakia in the 1980′s). It’s supposed to have been written by the same people within the Chinese Communist Party that produced the current Chinese Constitution. But they needed a suitable dissident to spread and give it credibility. Therefor Liu Xiaobo got the task to complete and put his name into the document. Jiang Pin writes this on the website “China Uncensored”.

The purpose of the Charter 08, according to Jiang Pins sources, should have been to counter the series of articles of “Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party”, which Epoch Times published in 2004, and that has contributed to a large number of Chinese people quitting the party.

Charter 08 had a few thousand signatures via Internet before it was taken down by the regime. But many Chinese democracy advocates were less impressed by the manifest, and said it was vaguely written without any real demands on the communist party to  relinquish power. And without that change no meaningful change can happen in China, they claimed.

It has been suggested that the fact that Liu Xiaobo got eleven years in prison is a proof to that he is a genuine democracy and human rights activist. Against that talks some information in Jiang Pins article in “China Uncensored”. The imprisonment is supposed to have been a part of the process to give Liu Xiaobo and Charter 08 as much attention as possible.

Jiang Pin talked to a government representative at the beginning of the year, who said that the party has invested huge money to ensure that Liu gets the Nobel Peace Prize, and the reason for that should have been: “Unless Liu Xiaobo gets the Nobel Peace Prize, then it [the Chinese Communist Party] can not release him!”

The fact that Liu Xiaobo gets the Peace Prize means in that case that the Chinese government, through a detour, save its own skin by limiting “Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party” influence in China by spreading Charter 08, says Jiang Pin.

More: Behind Liu Xiaobo’s Nobel Peace Prize – China Uncensored

For reading the articles: http://ninecommentaries.com/