From: G.COLOGNA@LINK-BZ.comlink.apc.org

PRESS RELEASE

Date: 18 December 1995

CHINA: Writers sign open letter on behalf of convicted journalist Wei Jingsheng

ORIGINATOR: PEN American Center

**For background to case, see IFEX alerts dated 13

December, 21 November and 17 March 1995; 6, 5 October,

1 April, 4 March 1994; 14 September 1993**

On 15 December 1995, Wei Shan-Shan, the sister of Wei Jingsheng, one of China's most steadfast and outspoken proponents of free speech and democracy who was convicted in a closed Beijing court of "sedition" and sentenced to serve fourteen years in prison, met with the media at a press conference organized by PEN American Center and the New York-based Human Rights in China. Ms. Wei was in the United States to meet with top officials in Washington and New York.

Also speaking at the press conference was a panel of distinguished United States writers: PEN President Anne Hollander, China expert Orville Schell, essayist and novelist Susan Sontag, and novelist Robert Stone.

Stone read an open letter he composed, which was sent on 11 December to the heads of ten governments in countries with extensive trade links with China. Signed by prominent writers from all ten countries, the letter called on the ten leaders to do their utmost to secure Wei's release. The full text of the letter follows:

"Prime Minister Paul Keating

Prime Minister Jean Chretien

Prime Minister Paul Nyrup Rasmussen

President Jacques Chirac

Chancellor Helmut Kohl

Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama

President Kim Young-sam

Prime Minister Ingvar Carlsson

Prime Minister John Major

President Bill Clinton

"`Dissent may not always be pleasant to listen to, and it is inevitable that it will sometimes be misguided. But it is everyone's sovereign right. Indeed, when government is seen as defective or unreasonable, criticizing it is an unshirkable duty.'-- Wei Jingsheng

"We, the undersigned, are writers of the developed world who are privileged to live and work under circumstances that allow us to express our opinions freely. We come together now in hopes of focusing your attention on the urgent plight of our Chinese colleague Wei Jingsheng.

"On November 21, 1995, Wei, who disappeared from sight after being arrested by Chinese secret police agents in April 1994, was formally charged by the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party with `conducting activities in an attempt to overthrow the government.' This is a grave criminal offense, which guarantees, at the least, a long incarceration and harsh treatment -- in this case, for a man who is in the forefront of the battle for human rights in his country.

"As a young man, Wei Jingsheng first protested publicly against repression during the so-called Beijing Spring of 1978-1979, when only the bravest spirits dared speak out after the Orwellian silence and darkness in which China had been wrapped for years. All China's `springs' have failed Wei since then but he has never failed his country, repeatedly protesting and being repeatedly and inhumanely punished for it. Now at the age of forty-five, he has served nearly sixteen years in prison for stating his opinions.

"In 1993, pressure from the United States and other Western nations helped obtain Wei Jingsheng's release from prison. He immediately recommenced his campaign for democracy, was soon detained again, and, if convicted at his December 13 trial, faces potentially life-threatening punishment.

"Recently, a former Chinese Communist Party official living abroad remarked that the Chinese government's policy toward dissidents would be tested in the wake of President Jiang Zemin's `summit meeting' with President Clinton.

"`When Jiang came back from the summit with Clinton,' said the former official, `instead of releasing Wei the government charged him.... This proves the hard-liners still have the upper hand.'

"We believe that the hard-liners will continue to have the upper hand so long as they can convince their colleagues in government that economic opportunities for Western business will take precedence over Western concern for democratic freedoms and basic rights. As Wei wrote in `The New York Times' after his release in 1993, they are asking: `Is it really likely that Americans would abandon an opportunity to make money just to protect the human rights of those they have befriended? Is it really likely that the American people's determinations of right and wrong could ever influence the judgment of the U.S. government?' And Wei concluded, `It looks as if the Communist Party has answered these questions in the negative.So even though it may have realized that its own conduct might have been in error, it still firmly pursues a strategy of brinkmanship, giving ground only when absolutely necessary and always in the last five minutes.... The Chinese people's understanding of the new direction of U.S. policy towar

d China leads them to believe that the party was right all these years in saying that the American government is controlled by rich capitalists. All you have to do is offer them a chance to make money and anything goes. Their consciences never stopped them from making money.'

"Wei's words about the United States might apply to any of our countries in their relations with China. We cannot know whether Wei Jingsheng, in the cell where he is at present confined, is aware of what happened in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, on November 10. That day, the repressive military government of Nigeria, secure in its belief that oil and profits matter more to the West than human rights, hanged the writer Ken Saro-Wiwa and eight of his co-defendants on charges universally regarded as false, committing a brutal act of judicial murder. It is easy to imagine that Nigeria's indifference to belated pleas and threats was not lost on Wei Jingsheng's jailers.

"We, writers living in freedom, request with the greatest urgency that you not allow a repetition of the Port Harcourt murders to occur in China. We ask that you act to justify Wei Jingsheng's faith in our shared principles. We fervently request that every available influence be brought to bear to secure his release and that of other patriots and prisoners of conscience in China. The day will surely arrive when a generation of leadership comes to understand the necessity for tolerance as an emblem of participation in a civilized world community. Until that day, if our hopes for such a community are to mean anything, we must help and support those who work toward it. This test of our countries' concern in the matter of human rights is being observed by the whole world. We must not be found wanting, thereby giving satisfaction to the enemies of freedom everywhere."

Signed,

Australia

Peter Carey

Elizabeth Jolley

Canada

Margaret Atwood

Alice Munro

Michael Ondaatje

Denmark

Niels Barfoed

Peter Hoeg

France

Jacques Derrida

Germany

Gunter Grass

Peter Schneider

Japan

Kenzaburo Oe

South Korea

Ko Eun

Paik Nak-chung

Sweden

Goran Mlmqvist

Arne Ruth

Per Wstberg

United Kingdom

A. S. Byatt

Ronald Harwood

United States

Anne Hollander

Susan Sontag

Norman Mailer

Robert Stone

Arthur Miller

William Styron

Faith Sale

Amy Tan

Stephen King

For further information, contact Siobhan Dowd or Jake Kreilkamp at PEN American Center at 568 Broadway, suite 401, New York, NY 10012 USA, tel: +1 212 334 1660, fax: +1 212 334 2181, e-mail: pen@igc.apc.org

The information contained in this press release is the sole responsibility of its originator.

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