Download the script as a PDF.

INTRODUCTION

On Christmas Day last year, a court in Beijing sentenced the distinguished writer, poet, and activist Liu Xiaobo to 11 years in prison and two years’ deprivation of political rights for exercising his internationally-protected right to free expression, a right that also exists under the Chinese Constitution. For his courage, conviction, and refusal to remain silent on human rights, Liu Xiaobo has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize this year. Yet still, he remains in prison. His wife, Liu Xia, relegated to house arrest. Both unable to speak, to celebrate with the world.

So we are here today to give life to the words of Liu Xiaobo, to make sure he is heard, to celebrate his life and his work, and to call for his release.

We will read the seven sentences he wrote, consisting of only 224 Chinese characters, that the Beijing Court found to be “subversive.” Some of the passages are not full sentences, but mere phrases; others are simply the titles of essays that Liu had written. Two of the sentences come from Charter 08, a manifesto calling for democratic reforms in China, a manifesto he helped to write and which has been signed by over ten thousand other brave Chinese men and women. The other five sentences come from essays Liu posted on the Internet.

We will also read three of the many poems Liu Xiaobo wrote during a term of three years of “reeducation through labor” that he served in the late ‘90s. Most of the rest of his work from that time has been confiscated and possibly destroyed by the Chinese government. These sentences and poems will be interspersed with excerpts from the shameful official verdict of the court that sentenced him last year.

We are proud to stand here in solidarity with our fellow writer, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, and with his family, and we will not rest until he is free. 


Reading #1

From Liu Xiaobo’s 2006 article, “The Many Aspects of CPC Dictatorship” (the “CPC” is the Communist Party of China”):

“Thus, all of the tricks used by the Communist Party of China are stop-gap measures for the dictators to preserve the last phase of their power and will not be able to support for long this dictatorial edifice that is already showing countless cracks.”

[pause]

I’m __________. I’m now going to read a short passage from the verdict of the Beijing Municipality First Intermediate Peoples Court, December 25, 2009:

The “investigation record” of Public Security organs and material evidence photographs of December 8, 2008 prove: that, relying on the testimony of witnesses, Public Security searched Liu Xiaobo’s residence at No. 7 Xiancun, Bank of China dormitory Building 10 … and found and took into custody the tools that Liu Xiaobo used to write the documents and to send them to web sites—two notebook computers, one desktop computer, and one copy of a printed document “Charter 08—Request for Comments.”

The Beijing Municipality Networking Industry Association Forensic Electronic Data Center provided a “Judicial Testimony Opinion Document” proving: that, on December 13, 2008, a forensic examination of the data stored on the three computers authenticated the discovery of the electronic documents “The Dictatorial Patriotism of the Chinese Communist Party,” “Can It Be that the Chinese People Deserve Only ‘Party-Led Democracy’?” “Change the Political Regime by Changing Society,” “The Many Faces of the Chinese Communist Dictatorship,” “The Negative Effect of the Rise of a Dictatorship on World Democratization,” “Inquiring Further into the Case of the Child Slaves of the Black Kilns” and “Charter 08.”

The records of the “Skype” software on his computer contained multiple emails that he sent from November to December 8, 2008 containing “Charter 08” and the “request for comments” document.


Reading #2

According to the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court, one of Liu Xiaobo’s offending passages is from his 2006 article, “The Negative Effects of the Rise of Dictatorship on World Democratization.” In its verdict, however, the court did not actually quote any passages from this article.

[pause]

I’m __________. Liu Xiaobo wrote the poem “Daybreak” in 1997 while serving three years in a reeducation camp. The poem is dedicated to his wife, Xia.

DAYBREAK
over the tall ashen wall, between
the sound of vegetables being chopped
daybreak’s bound, severed,
dissipated by a paralysis of spirit

what is the difference
between the light and the darkness
that seems to surface through my eyes’
apertures, from my seat of rust
I can’t tell if it’s the glint of chains
in the cell, or the god of nature
behind the wall
daily dissidence
makes the arrogant
sun stunned to no end

daybreak a vast emptiness
you in a far place
with nights of love stored away


Reading #3 & 4 (two readers)

Reader 1:

From Liu Xiaobo’s 2005 article, “The CPC’s Dictatorial Patriotism”:

“The official patriotism advocated by the CPC dictatorship is a fallacious system of ‘substituting the party for the country.’ The essence of this patriotism is to demand that the people love the dictatorship, the one-party rule, and the dictators. It usurps patriotism in order to inflict disasters on the nation and calamities on the people.”

Reader 2:

From Liu Xiaobo’s 2007 article, “Further Questions about Child Slavery in China’s Kilns”:

“Since the Communist Party of China took power, generations of CPC dictators have cared most about their own power and least about human life.”

[pause]

Reader 1:

I’m __________

Reader 2:

I’m ___________. We will also be reading from the Christmas Day verdict sentencing Liu Xiaobo to 11 years in prison.

The on-the-scene investigation by the Public Security organs proves:

Beijing Municipality Public Information Network Security and Supervision Officer, First Detachment, found and downloaded from the Internet a document signed “Liu Xiaobo” entitled “Can It Be that the Chinese People Deserve Only ‘Party-Led Democracy?” As of December 23, 2008 this document had been published or republished on five web sites and had a total of 402 hits.

Reader 1:

The investigating officer also found and downloaded from the Internet a document signed “Liu Xiaobo” entitled “Change the Political Regime by Changing Society.” This document had been published or republished on five web sites and had a total of 748 hits.

Reader 2:

The officer also found and downloaded a document signed “Liu Xiaobo” entitled “The Many Faces of the Chinese Communist Dictatorship.” This document had been published or republished on six web sites and had a total of 512 hits.

Reader 1:

The officer also downloaded a document signed “Liu Xiaobo” entitled “The Negative Effect of the Rise of a Dictatorship on World Democratization”. This document had been published or republished on seven web sites and had a total of 57 hits.

Reader 2:

The officer downloaded a document signed “Liu Xiaobo” entitled “Further Questions about Child Slavery in China’s Kilns.” This document had been published or republished on eight web sites and had a total of 488 hits.

Reader 1:

The officer also downloaded from the Internet a document entitled “Charter 08”. That document resided on the web site with the domain name www.chinesepen.org (The Independent Chinese Pen Center). This document as of December 12, 2008 had been published or republished on 33 web sites including 19 outside the borders of mainland China and had a total of 5154 hits and 158 replies. (Charter 08) had as of December 9, 2009 the signatures of 10,390 people.

Reader 2:

The Beijing Municipality Public Information Network Security and Supervision Office investigated Liu Xiaobo’s e-mails and as a result of that examination found that Liu Xiaobo’s email mailbox is located outside the borders of mainland China. After using a password to get into that mailbox to check it, it was found that the earliest email sent from that mail box was dated November 25, 2008 and that 30 of the sent e-mails included “Charter 08.”


Reading #5

From Liu Xiaobo’s 2006 article, “Can it be that the Chinese People Deserve Only ‘Party-Led Democracy’?”:

“For the emergence of a free China, placing hope in the ruler of a ‘New Deal’ is an idea far worse than placing hope in the continuous expansion of the ‘new force’ among the people.”

[pause]

I’m __________. This is “Longing to Escape,” a poem by Liu Xiaobo, dedicated to his wife Xia:

abandon the imagined martyrs
I long to lie at your feet, besides
being tied to death this is
my one duty
when the heart’s mirror-
clear, an enduring happiness

your toes will not break
a cat closes in behind
you, I want to shoo him away
as he turns his head, extends
a sharp claw toward me
deep within his blue eyes
there seems to be a prison
if I blindly step out
of with even the slightest
step I’d turn into a fish


Reading #6

From Charter 08, the December 10, 2008 declaration calling for political reforms, greater human rights, and an end to one-party rule in China:

“One-party monopolization of ruling privileges should be abolished.”

I’m __________. Again from the verdict of the court:

This court believes that the defendant Liu Xiaobo, with the purpose of inciting the overthrow of our country’s people’s democratic dictatorship system and our socialist system, used the Internet to distribute his document because of its rapid speed, great scope, large social influence and the attention which the people pay to it. He wrote the documents and used the Internet to publish them in order to slander and urge other people to overthrow our country’s democratic dictatorship system and our socialist system. This conduct in itself constitutes the crime of incitement to overthrow state power. Moreover, he has been committing this crime for a long while and the subjective evil caused is great. The published documents have been spread through links and republishing. People read them and they have a bad effect. This is the crime of a major criminal and should be severely punished according to law.

The defendant Liu Xiaobo, for the crime of incitement to overthrow state power, is sentenced to prison for eleven years and deprivation of political rights for two years


Reading #7

Also from Charter 08:

“[We need] to establish China’s federal republic under the structure of democracy and constitutionalism.”

I’m __________. Liu Xiaobo wrote the following poem in 2000, near the end of his so-called “reeducation through labor” that he received after calling for political dialogue between the Chinese government and the Dalai Lama of Tibet. The poem is dedicated to his wife.

ONE LETTER
one letter is enough
for me to transcend and face
you to speak

as the wind blows past
the night
uses its own blood
to write a secret verse
that reminds me each
word is the last word

the ice in your body
melts into a myth of fire
in the eyes of the executioner
fury turns to stone

two sets of iron rails
unexpectedly overlap
moths flap toward lamp
light, an eternal sign
that traces your shadow