Word: china
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...Charter 08, a manifesto signed by 303 Chinese intellectuals that called for extensive reforms of the country's political system. While dozens of signers were detained, put under surveillance or otherwise harassed by authorities, Liu is the only one to face prison time. Charter 08 received no coverage within China but, after its release in December 2008, thousands Chinese within the country and overseas signed the petition online, a situation that embarrassed the Chinese government so soon after coming off the highs of its Olympic spotlight. (See how Chinese dissidents tried to propagate Charter...
...allowed into his trial on Wednesday. On Tuesday U.S. State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley said, "As far as we can tell, this man's crime was simply signing a piece of paper that aspires to a more open and participatory form of government. That is not a crime." China's Foreign Ministry on Thursday called all criticism of Liu's trial "gross interference in China's internal affairs." (See how Beijing clamped down after the release of Charter...
...visiting scholar at Columbia University when the Tiananmen Square demonstrations gripped China in the summer of 1989. He returned home to join student hunger strikers, and was jailed for 20 months after the government's bloody crackdown. He was later sentenced to three years in a labor camp beginning in 1996 for further questioning China's one-party system. Along with Hu Jia, who was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison on a subversion charge in 2008, Liu was one of the most prominent dissidents active in mainland China...
...conviction and sentencing, say human rights groups, is evidence that beneath China's pretensions of modernity is the old, intolerant authoritarianism, albeit gussied up with legalisms. "The Chinese government's decision to sentence Liu Xiaobo to 11 years in prison on subversion charges is a travesty of justice and reflects yet again the government's willingness to use the law as a weapon to silence dissent," Phelim Kine, an Asia researcher with New York-based Human Rights Watch, wrote after the verdict. "The severity of Liu's sentence puts the lie to the government's lofty rhetoric on commitment...
...rulers of China may not commemorate Christmas and may have cynically picked the day to pass judgment on Liu to avoid Western media attention. But they may have given the people they wish to silence a new code word for anger. In the Twitterverse, Chinese language tweets have now paired Liu's fate and shengdan, the Chinese words for the birthday of Christ. From now on, Christmas will have a separate meaning for dissidents in China. It will be their day to commemorate Liu Xiaobo...