Mo Yan mocks victims of censorship – Human rights activists recall the case of an author and publisher who has been imprisoned for 17 years

The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) accuses the Chinese author Mo Yan of playing down censorship in China while dozens of writers and publishers are still imprisoned for political reasons. "The fate of the Mongolian author and publisher Hada, who has been imprisoned for at least 17 years, is a particularly tragic example," recalled the STP's expert on questions regarding Asia, Ulrich Delius. "Two years ago – on occasion of the Human Rights Day – Hada was supposed to be released. But since then, he is being kept imprisoned illegally by Chinese law. Witnesses reported that he is becoming mentally ill." Hada was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 1995, for publishing two books about the history of the Mongols. His wife and son were temporarily taken into custody.

On Monday – also on occasion of the Human Rights Day – Mo Yan will be awarded with the Nobel Prize. Last Thursday, during a press conference in Stockholm, he had described censorship as a necessary evil and had drawn a comparison with annoying security checks at airports.

"Mo Yan's literary merits are indisputable, but he would do well to show more respect for his colleagues who chose not to accept censorship, but have tried to show commitment towards the freedom of expression," said Delius. Unlike many other authors who are imprisoned in China, Mo Yan had tried to avoid any open conflict with the state censors. "This is his personal decision, but – being a Nobel Prize laureate – he should have more backbone and should not mock China's persecuted writers if he does not want to discredit both himself and also the Nobel Prize."

During the last few weeks, leading Chinese intellectuals had criticized the award for Mo Yan, because the Chinese leadership also instrumentalizes him for propaganda purposes. At the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2009, he had refused to be presented in the same room as the exile-Chinese author Bei Ling.

"The Chinese measures of censorship are inhumane and cruel. The dedicated Mongolian publisher Hada and his family were deliberately and systematically ground down", criticized Delius. The contact to Hadas wife Xinna and son Uiles broke down again at the end of October 2012. Once before, they had been imprisoned and put under house arrest for months. The last time Xinna had talked to her friends – on October 17 – she had reported that her husband was becoming mentally ill and that he been totally apathetic when she last visited him in prison.