Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2010-11-23-Speech-2-582"
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"en.20101123.41.2-582"2
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"Madam President, following the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, Liu Xiaobo is now the only Nobel laureate who is incarcerated, in prison. From the speeches that we have already heard from the Council and here in Parliament, all of us here hope that he will be able to receive this Nobel Prize in freedom, or that he will be freed as soon as possible. That would honour the person that he is: committed to the peaceful transformation of China; a literary critic, teacher and author, who has always sought to bring freedom of expression and democracy to China through the world of ideas and words. The document Charter 08, for which Liu Xiaobo was imprisoned, is, as Mr Chastel has already reminded us, a constructive and peaceful one, which caused Liu Xiaobo to be incarcerated.
We know what we have to do now: work towards the release of Liu Xiaobo and all China’s political prisoners. We must also work towards the release of Liu Xia, Liu Xiaobo’s wife, who is under house arrest, and bring an end to the siege of their family, friends and lawyers. For this to be achieved, China will have to ask itself why, for example, it responded to the recent release of Aung San Suu Kyi by calling her an important political figure, even though it does not recognise that many people across the world believe that Liu Xiaobo, too, is an important political figure. However, above all, China needs to realise what a sad, awful figure it cut with its bitter worldwide diplomatic offensive to prevent the world’s high diplomatic representatives being present in Oslo for the Nobel Prize ceremony. Clearly, the people who run China can want to live in a fantasy world, and we understand why it is that they want to live in a fantasy world, where there is no opposition. What they cannot do is want to force us to live according to the rules of that fantasy world. That, I believe, is fundamentally our main issue. It is very easy for us in this Chamber to bring our indignation before the Chinese authorities and put all our complaints to them, but I think that first, we should look at the European authorities and start with our own governments. When my country, Portugal, was receiving a visit from high Chinese dignitaries recently, the government steered a demonstration by Amnesty International away from the place that the entourage was going to pass through to somewhere a few hundred metres away; the same thing happened in France, where a demonstration was moved to the Eiffel Tower. Moreover, as we have already seen, David Cameron recently travelled to China, very interested in doing business with the country, but forgetting to make a single forceful reference to human rights.
We know that there are double standards here in Europe. We say a few passing words about Liu Xiaobo, but our governments are interested in doing business. We must therefore start the housecleaning here."@en1
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