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Chinese elders call for more freedom

14.10.2010

BEIJING — Twenty-three retired Chinese Communist Party officials, led by Mao Zedong’s former secretary, have challenged the government to improve press freedom, just days before meeting to discuss the nation’s new leadership.

The group, drawn from the military, state media, and academia, accused “invisible black hands’’ of suppressing a speech last month in which Premier Wen Jiabao called for greater political openness to match the country’s economic gains. The open letter by party elders including Li Rui, Mao’s secretary, was published on the Internet.

“What right does the Central Propaganda Department have to muzzle the speech of the premier?’’ the letter said, referring to a branch of the party that focuses on ideology. “What right does it have to rob the people of our nation of their right to know what the premier said?’’

The letter’s release two days before the party’s central committee meeting reflects an internal debate over the future of political reform, said Huang Jing, a visiting professor at National University of Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy. The move may also be a sign that the reformist camp is in retreat following the award of the Nobel Peace Prize to imprisoned Chinese democracy activist Liu Xiaobo, he said.

The Nobel award was widely viewed in the party as “a deliberate move to make the Chinese government look bad’’ and this mentality has emboldened opponents of political change, Huang said. Publicly releasing the letter was a “desperate last effort’’ on the part of the reformists.

Liu was given the Peace Prize for his struggle to promote human rights and democracy, the Nobel committee said Oct. 8. The 54-year-old writer was ordered jailed last year for 11 years for subversion for his role in organizing Charter 08, an open letter calling for direct elections and freedom of assembly as guaranteed by China’s constitution.

Of the 303 Chinese academics, lawyers, and retired party officials who signed the letter in 2008, five were also signatories in the latest petition, based on a list published by Human Rights in China, a pressure group. These include Hu Jiwei, former editor of the party’s mouthpiece, People’s Daily, and Du Guang, a retired professor of the Central Party School.

Du was questioned by security officers in January after he described Liu’s sentence as “stupid and shameful,’’ according to a report on the website of Radio Free Asia.

A link to the Chinese-language version of the letter could not be opened inside China, with screens showing “network error.’’ A search in Chinese for Li Rui’s name on Google.com in China generated the following message on Microsoft Corp.’s web browser: “Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage.’’

The Communist Party Central Committee plenum is to begin tomorrow in Beijing.

Source

Bloomberg News  

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