Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo Honours Young Protestors Of 1989; Young Protestors March In 2010 …

• December 11th, 2010
• Posted by EUEditor

The Nobel Peace Prize ceremony honouring Liu Xiaobo has gone ahead (10.12.10) in the absence of the gaoled Chinese human rights campaigner,

In other places, protests in the streets have focused on Internet rights, and austerity in Britain.

HONESTY, DIGNITY AND RESPONSIBILITY

The Norwegian Nobel Committee released the text of Mr Liu’s statement in court, when he was sentenced last year to eleven years gaol, for supporting a campaign for free elections.

He said the democracy movement was peaceful, and he had been living a life committed to honesty, dignity and responsibility.

He has also sent a message from prison, dedicating the prize to the “lost souls” of Tienanmen Square, young democracy campaigners killed in the massacre there in 1989.

A writer and teacher, he publicly spoke up for the protestors at the time.

NORWEGIAN NOBEL COMMITTEE

At the Oslo ceremony, the Nobel Chairman, Thorbjoern Jagland, placing the commemorative diploma on an empty chair before a portrait of Mr Liu, said the prize committee had not been trying to impose values on China, but to recognise links between peace and human rights.

See video, “Video Nobel Prize laid on an empty chair”, AP:

http://www.google.com.au/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&channel=s&tbs=nws%3A1&q=Nobel+ceremony+boycott&btnG=Search&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=, (10.12.10).
“It is a reminder that further economic growth in China must be combined with political reforms”, he said.

Mr Jagland also expressed concern about impacts of a rejection by Communist Party authorities in China, of demands for individual freedoms.

“We can to a certain degree say that China, with its 1.3 billion people is carrying mankind’s fate on its shoulders.”

CHINA REACTION

The televised Nobel Peace Prize ceremony has been blocked out in China, on air and on line – screens abruptly going dark mid-transmission. News bulletins led with a story expounding the government line.
Government officials there who earlier described the Prize choice as an obscenity, called the Nobel committee “clowns”, and complained  it was an interference in China’s internal affairs, through discrediting the courts.

Chinese officials have been pressuring other governments about the Nobel Prize, some of those not too stable themselves, and out of 58 countries with embassies in Oslo, 17 indicated they would decline.

It was not represented as a full boycott, as if setting up a league of despots; the embassies gave out various reasons for not attending.

The list included the two communist states Cuba and Vietnam, and Afghanistan, Colombia, Egypt, Iraq, Iran, Kazakhstan, Morocco Pakistan, Philippines, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, Ukraine and Venezuela.

YOUTH PROTESTS – NOT QUITE FLOWER POWER

Protests worldwide over the detention of the Wikileaks founder Julian Assage have shifted from the cyber battlefield — attacks intended to disrupt commerce –  to street marches.

Not facing a fate like the marchers at Tienanmen Square, they showed some affinity with them, being mostly young, and talking a lot about freedom.

Mr Assange has been remanded in custody in London to answer an extradition claim from Sweden, where he is accused of sexual offences.

The publication of thousands of leaked United States diplomatic cables through his website has brought demands for him to be prosecuted in America for espionage.

Heavy Internet users, and there are many, don’t get the wisdom of that, if it hampers their free flow of information.

In London, student groups and militant organisations marching with them have provided another rough day of street demonstrations against large cuts in education spending – and steeply rising tuition fees.

As the education measures squeaked though during a riotous session in the House of Commons, fires were lit at Westminster and at one point a car carrying Prince Charles and his wife blundered onto the scene, to be mobbed by a crowd.

See video, “Film of attack on Royal car”, ITN. http://www.google.com.au/search?q=london+demonstrations&hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&biw=1280&bih=601&ie=UTF-8&tbo=u&tbs=nws:1&source=og&sa=N&tab=in, (11.12.10).

The introduction of mounted police into the operation brought back images of the early days of conservative rule in the 1980s; police in confrontation with coal miners objecting to pit closures, and opponents of the News complex being built at Wapping.

See also EUAustralia Online: “Nobel Peace laureate”, 12.10.10;
“The hunt after Wikileaks …”, 8.12.10; “Students enter confrontation …”, 11.11.10.

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