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Chinese Nobel Winner Appeals Subversion Conviction

By CHRIS BUCKLEY

The New York Times, November 19, 2013

HONG KONG — Liu Xiaobo, the imprisoned Chinese dissident who won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize, will seek to challenge in court the subversion verdict imposed on him almost four years ago, a lawyer for Mr. Liu said on Tuesday.

A court in Beijing sentenced Mr. Liu to 11 years in prison in December 2009 after he helped organize Charter ’08, a petition calling for wide-ranging political changes that amounted to replacing Communist Party rule with a multiparty democracy.

The following year, Mr. Liu won the Nobel Peace Prize, prompting fury from the Chinese government, which blamed the Norwegian government for the decision, although the prize is awarded by an independent committee. Since then, Mr. Liu’s wife, Liu Xia, has also lived in confinement, kept under informal house arrest by the police and guards around her apartment in Beijing.

Ms. Liu visited her husband in prison last month and passed on his written request to formally challenge his sentence, Mo Shaoping, a lawyer acting for Mr. Liu said in a telephone interview.

“This is requesting that a court retry the case,” Mr. Mo said. “The appeal here means he doesn’t accept the verdict already in effect that was reached by the court in the initial and second trials.”

Mr. Mo said he was preparing to submit papers to the Beijing Municipal High People’s Court contesting the verdict against Mr. Liu, who was convicted of “inciting subversion of state power.” Mr. Mo said he or a colleague also hoped to visit Mr. Liu, who is held in a prison in northeast China.

“The basis for the appeal is the same argument we raised earlier — writing essays, participating in drafting Charter ’08, are all part of a citizen’s right to freedom of expression,” said Mr. Mo. “When we appeal, they will have to accept our documents, assess the case, and decide whether to hold a retrial.”

Mr. Liu’s decision to appeal again was first reported by Radio Free Asia, a service based in Washington that receives funding from the United States government.

Mr. Mo would not comment on Mr. Liu’s chances of success. But China’s courts rarely overturn verdicts, and it would be unheard-of in a politically contentious case like this. In February 2010, a court rejected Mr. Liu’s first appeal.

A writer and literary critic, Mr. Liu, 57, won prominence as a critic of censorship and political restrictions in the 1980s, and was imprisoned for a first time for his role in the student-led protests of 1989.

On Friday, the Communist Party leadership published a program of economic, social and legal reforms, including plans to abolish re-education through labor — a form of imprisonment that does not need a trial — and vows to make China’s courts less susceptible to meddling by local officials.

But there are no signs that these measured changes will bring about a major political relaxation. The party leadership under President Xi Jinping has instead overseen a widespread clampdown on political dissident, criticism and rumors spread on the Internet, and ideological currents seen as threatening one-party rule.