Chinese rights activist honoured at vigil
Dissident Liu remembered by Toronto crowd for courage
Chinese democracy activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo was remembered Friday evening in Toronto for his courageous fight for human rights.
Nearly 200 people gathered outside the Consulate-General of the People’s Republic of China on St. George Street to honour Liu for his efforts to end human rights abuses and bring freedoms of speech, the press and assembly to China.
“He has sacrificed even his life in order to promote democracy and freedom in China,” said Gloria Fung, president of Canada Hong Kong Link, one of the organizations that hosted the vigil.
“His spirit has inspired a lot of us around the world. Until the very last moment, he still insisted on using very peaceful means in achieving social change in China.”
Liu, who had been imprisoned since 2009, died on July 13 from liver cancer. He was 61.
Numerous speakers took the microphone to honour the activist as a black canvas with an empty white chair on it billowed gently in the breeze. It was a symbolic gesture. In 2010, China’s government would not allow Liu, who was imprisoned, to accept his Nobel Prize, so the Nobel committee left an empty chair on stage at the ceremony.
Liu was an “intellectual” and a “visionary,” said Dora Nipp, a spokesperson for the Toronto Association for Democracy in China.
He is “China’s greatest loss,” she said.
Liu devoted his life to free people in China, said Rollor Lou, the Secretary General of the Canadian branch of the Federation for a Democratic China. “He sacrificed his own freedom.” Liu was imprisoned four times, punishment he incurred in his fight for human rights. In 2009, he was sentenced to 11 years imprisonment for “inciting subversion of state power” after being arrested the year be- fore for co-authoring Charter 08, a pro-democracy manifesto for China.
In 2010, while still in prison, Liu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of “his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China.”
“For over two decades, Liu Xiaobo has been a strong spokesman for the application of fundamental human rights also in China,” the Nobel committee wrote that year.
Liu also spent two years in prison for participating in the 1989 student protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square and three years in a labour camp for criticizing the country’s one-party system, the Nobel website notes.
Internal reports from Global Affairs Canada, obtained through access to information by The Canadian Press, show human rights abuses in China have worsened over the last two years. Restrictions on media, including the imprisonment of journalists, and concerns about academic freedom and freedom of expression, have grown. With files from Star wire services