DEMOCRACY FOR CHINA: THE OBJECTIVE OF 1,000 SIGNATURES FOR THE NOMINATION OF WEI JINGSHENG'S CANDIDACY FOR THE 1997 NOBEL PEACE PRIZE HAS BEEN REACHED.

713 PARLIAMENTARIANS, 284 UNIVERSITY PROFESSORS, 3 NOBEL LAUREATES, AND 2 MEMBERS OF GOVERNMENT SEND A MESSAGE IN THIS WAY TO THE CHINESE AUTHORITIES SO THAT CONCRETE DEMOCRATIC REFORMS BEGIN IN THE DICTATORSHIP OF PEKING.

New York, January 28, 1997. The Transnational Radical Party's campaign, in collaboration with Human Rights in China and the Federation for Democracy in China, has reached its first objective. On January 31st the secretary of the Transnational Radical Party, Olivier Dupuis, will deliver the more than one thousand signatures of support for Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng, leader of the "Wall of Democracy" movement, to the Nobel Committee in Oslo. Wei Jingsheng is currently incarcerated in a concentration camp in Tangshan, China, and is suffering from serious health problems.

The campaign has collected the signatures of Parliamentarians from all over the world, from the Parliament of Taiwan to the entire Tibetan Parliament in exile, as well as the representative groups of the European Parliament, Eastern European Parliaments, and even the Congress of the United States. Dozens of professors from the most prestigious faculty departments in the world supported the campaign, as did Nobel Peace Prize recipients Desmond TUTU, Mairead MAGUIRE CORRIGAN, and Adolfo PEREZ ESQUIVEL.

This great time for the nonviolent struggle for democracy in China will not cease with the formal presentation of the signatures to the Nobel Committee. There are already numerous procedures being activated in many European city councils for the announcement of support for Wei's Nobel candidacy, and on March 9th and 10th the TRP, together with the Tibet Support Groups of Europe and the Tibetan Community in Europe will hold large manifestations before the United Nations in Geneva. The demonstrations will be for the freedom of occupied Tibet and the respect of human and civil rights in all of the territories governed by the People's Republic of China.

Transnational Radical Party