Published by: World Tibet Network News, Wednesday, October 9, 1996

by Giles Hewitt

BEIJING, Oct 9 (AFP) - Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo has been sentenced to three years in a labour camp for writing a letter last week in support of Tibetan self-determination, his wife said Wednesday.

The severity of the sentence and the speed with which it was handed down were a harsh reminder of the extreme sensitivity felt by the authorities here over the question of Tibet.

Liu was arrested at his Beijing home on Tuesday morning and sentenced without trial to a re-education through labour camp the same afternoon, said his wife, Liu Xia.

The whereabouts of the co-author of the letter, Wang Xizhe -- a veteran pro-democracy activist from Guangzhou -- was unknown.

The pair had also called for stronger legal controls over the Communist Party, talks between Beijing and nationalist rival Taiwan and firmer action by China in its dispute with Japan over an island chain in the East China Sea.

However, it was the comments on Tibet -- generally a taboo subject even among dissident circles -- which are likely to have most angered the authorities.

"Sometimes the government has let these critical letters or petitions go, but Tibet is really a red rag to a bull," said one Beijing-based western diplomat.

Liu and Wang accused the government of reneging on pledges made before the communists came to power in 1949 that the country's ethnic minorities would have the right to self-determination.

"We urge the Chinese Communist Party to recognise their earlier position and advance enlightened policies on the right of self-determination," the letter said.

They also called on the government to open talks with Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, who has been the focus of vicious verbal attacks from Beijing.

Although the police did not specify the charges that resulted in Liu's swift sentencing, his wife said the arrest was obviously the direct result of the letter's contents.

Liu was convicted under an administrative punishment law, which allows police to sentence individuals to a maximum of three years of re-education through labour without trial.

Liu, a literary critic and former history professor at Beijing University, had already spent 19 months in detention for his key role in the 1989 pro-democracy movement.

Tibet was also an important factor in the trial of China's best-known dissident, Wei Jingsheng, in December last year.

A much publicised section of the indictment against Wei accused him of attempting to "divide the motherland" by once writing in a letter to supreme leader Deng Xiaoping that "Tibet is undoubtedly a country with sovereignty."

Wei was finally sentenced to 14 years imprisonment for conspiring to subvert the government.

Other observers suggested that the speed of Liu's sentencing might have resulted from a decision at the secretive Communist Party plenum which opened in Beijing on Monday.

The plenum, which is expected to focus on strengthening the party's grip on power, could also be instrumental in deciding the final fate of dissident Wang Dan, 26, who has been detained without charge for almost a year and a half.

Wang, one of the top student leaders in the 1989 movement, is reportedly facing charges of counter-revolutionary incitement or subversion, and could face a jail term of up to seven years.

According to another western diplomat, the Chinese authorities are keen to clear the judicial books of any pending dissident cases ahead of revisions to the criminal law that will take effect at the beginning of next year.

The revisions are, officials say, aimed at stamping out such common judicial practices as coercing suspects and handing down "preconceived rulings."