Peking is trying to stifle the democracy movement with an unjust trial - Release Liu Xiaobo!

The Society for Threatened Peoples STP (Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker GfbV) has charged China with trying to stifle the democracy movement with an unjust trial which begins tomorrow against Liu Xiaobo. "With Liu Xiaobo the whole democracy movement is sitting symbolically in the dock", said the STP Asia consultant, Ulrich Delius, on Tuesday in Götttingen. The co-founder of the "Charta 08", in which human rights and the freedom of religion and the press are demanded for all Chinese citizens, is by far the best known of all who speak out for democracy in China. "The very opening alone of a trial against him makes a mockery of Chinese laws and constitution." The STP calls for the immediate release of the professor of literature and the closure of the trial.

Liu Xiaobo was arrested 24 hours before the Day of Human Rights in 2008. For "undermining the authority of the state" he is threatened with up to 15 years imprisonment. He was one of the 200 courageous Chinese dissidents who on the 60th anniversary of the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights" signed the Charta 08. Although dozens of signatories have been interrogated by the police or arrested, more than 10,000 people have already put their signatures under the Charter.

The spokesperson of the Tienanmen Mothers´ Movement, Ding Zilin, called on 18th December 2009 for all signatories of the Charta 08 to come to the trial of Liu Xiaobo to demonstrate their support for him. "However the authorities will no doubt prevent the regime critics from attending the trial", said Delius. For even the wife of the accused, Liu Xia, has been forbidden attendance at the trial.

The 53-year old Liu Xiaobo has already had to spend several years in Chinese prisons. The fact that the writer justified the student protests of 1989 was enough for him to lose his job and to have to spend almost two

years in prison. In 1995 he again spent six months in prison before he was

sent to a work-camp for three years. In 2003 he was elected President of

the "Independent Chinese PEN Centre".

After the disturbances in Tibet in the spring of 2008 he called for a credible dialogue between the Chinese government and the Dalai Lama and genuine freedom of religion for Tibetan Buddhists.

Ulrich Delius can also be reached at asien@gfbv.de