Subject: Support to the candidacy of Chinese dissident Mr Wei Jingsheng to the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize.

THE TURIN CITY COUNCIL

APPEALING TO

- the Resolution passed by the European Parliament on 21 June 1996 over the serious situation of the most prominent Chinese dissident, Mr Wei Jingsheng, and human rights violations in China;

- the Report by the European Commission "A long-lasting policy for the relationship between Europe and China" COM (95) 0279;

- the international mobilization fostered by numerous Tibet Support Groups, the Federation for Democracy in China, and the Transnational Radical Party for the immediate release of Mr Wei Jingsheng;

- the 3-day (29 September - 1 October 1996) dialogue fast with the respective Ministers for Foreign Affairs, performed by 1500 people from 31 countries for the release of Mr Wei Jingsheng;

- the international campaign for the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize to be awarded to Mr Wei Jingsheng, whose candidacy has already been endorsed by over 700 parliamentarians all over the world, as well as university professors in History, Law, Philosophy, and Political sciences;

- the candidacy of Mr Wei Jingsheng to the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize unanimously expressed by the Members of the Tibetan Parliament-in-exile;

- the awarding of the Sacharov Prize to Mr Wei Jingsheng by the European Parliament on 24 October 1996.

PREMISED THAT

- Mr Wei Jingsheng's biography emblematically illustrates the persistent human righs abuses by the authorities of the People's Republic of China;

- Mr Wei Jingsheng was born in Beijing in 1950. In 1966, at the height of the Cultural Revolution, Wei and other youngsters gathered in a democratic movement aiming to destroy the secret files of the political police. Mr Wei was arrested and sent to the countryside for a re-educational course. Back in the capital he found a job as an electrician at the zoo;

- On 5 December 1978 Mr Wei posted on the Democracy Wall his most known work, The Fifth Modernization, introducing the concept that China's economic development with the four modernizations extoled by the regime should be accompanied by the system's democratization. Mr Wei founded a magazine, Explorations, denouncing the political imprisonments, the widespreading poverty, the trading of children in the streets of Beijing. He raises an issue previously unknown even among dissidents: China's occupation and repression of Tibet. He stands against Chinese military attack of Vietnam and denounces Deng Xiaoping's despotism as leader of the post-maoist era;

- On 29 march 1979 Mr Wei was arrested, underwent a farcical trial and was sentenced to 15 years in jail for "counter-revolutionary activities". Though under strong psycho-physical pressure, he continued to write demanding freedom and democracy, and from his cell invited Deng Xiaoping to start negotiations with the Dalai Lama of Tibet;

- He was released in September 1993, six months ahead of schedule, because China willing to host the year 2000 Olimpics and then trying to get into the graces of the international public opinion; but Australia was chosen and on 1st April 1994 Mr Wei again was imprisoned without charges, his relatives not allowed neither to visit him nor to know the reasons of his detention. Though Chinese law provides that nobody can be detained without charges more than ten days, Mr Wei was officially indicted for "activities aimed to overthrow the government" on 21 November 1995, after 19 months in arbitrary detention;

- Though Chinese authorities have always failed to demonstrate his involvement in activities definable as criminal by international standards, on 13 December 1995 Mr Wei was sentenced to 14 years in jail and three more years deprived of his political rights. After 16 years in jail his health is seriously damaged.

BELIEVES THAT

- supporting Mr Wei Jingsheng's candidacy to the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize represents a real support to all those who in China fight so that a fifth of the world's population could enjoy the most fundamental human and civil rights, above all the right to freedom of opinion and expression;

- recalling the Chinese government to an effective, not merely formal respect of the principles sanctioned by the Universal Declaration on Human Rights should become a steady, permanent element in the relationship between Western countries and the authorities of the People's Republic of China;

- unless China's extraordinary economic growth goes with improvement in democracy (the Fifth Modernization), the already noticed civil unrest in that huge country could break out in very serious territorial and social tensions, spreading a dangerously nationalist ideology used by Beijing's regime as a glue to conceal and by no means solving the above-mentioned unrest.

BINDS THE MAYOR AND THE ADMINISTRATION

- to promote and support Mr Wei Jingsheng's candidacy to the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize;

- to act so that in future relationship between the City Administration and the Chinese authorities, the necessity of ensuring an actual respect of human rights in the People's Republic of China be highlighted;

- to transmit this Resolution to the Nobel Peace Prize Committee, the Prime Minister, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Speaker(s) of the Parliament, the Chairperson(s) of the Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs, the Chairperson(s) of the Parliamentary groups, the Ambassador of the People's Republic of China.

TURIN, 19 NOVEMBER 1996