OSLO, Norway-This week's the world's worst human rights violators drew a line in the sand by boycotting the Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony.
By declining their invitations Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt, China, Cuba, Iraq, Iran, Kazakhstan, Morocco, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Tunisia, Venezuela, and Vietnam declared their rejection of the Nobel Peace Prize choice: the heroic Chinese human rights defender Liu Xiaobo. Serbia also declined but at least was forthright in explaining that China is too important for them and that is why they were absent-due to Beijing's unprecedented diplomatic bullying.
When asked, Nobel Committee Secretary Geir Lundestad was not able to think of "any example where a country has so actively and directly tried to have ambassadors stay away from a Nobel ceremony."
After first requesting, by diplomatic letter, that all sovereign nations avoid the December 10th event, China went so far as to threaten "consequences" if governments showed support for Liu by attending. The warnings worked. More governments declined invitations to this Nobel ceremony than any other in history.
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| Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee Thorbjoern Jagland stands next to the reserved vacant chair of Nobel Laureate Liu Xiaobo (portrait at left), on which Jagland placed the Nobel Peace Prize diploma and gold medal during the ceremony for the Nobel Laureate and dissident Liu Xiaobo at the city hall in Oslo, December 10. AFP |
Beijing's most extreme attempt to distract attention away from today's ceremony was the bizarre creation of the "Confucius Peace Prize" awarded yesterday. It seems unlikely that Confucius would sympathize with a government that has now joined Burma, the Soviet Union, and Nazi Germany as one of the four countries to ever prevent a winner from accepting the Prize.
China's much-publicized campaign to derail the ceremony only explains half the story of the group of nations that avoided the event. Like Beijing, which calls Liu a "criminal" and considers the Nobel Committee a group of "clowns," the aforementioned governments have little reason to celebrate Liu's lifelong struggle for freedom and justice.
Some lining up on the Chinese dictatorship's side went public with their sentiments. The Cuban regime reduced the Prize decision to an "ideological broadside", while Venezuela's Hugo Chávez attacked Liu as a "dissident counter-revolutionary."
Thankfully, 46 countries (including its major trade partners) ignored Beijing's threats and sent their ambassadors to the ceremony. Admirably-considering his country's precarious situation-even Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou congratulated Liu.
Sadly, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights did not attend, as Navanethem Pillay declined the invitation with the excuse that she never received one. Pillay was, in fact, invited and I confirmed this with the person who was in direct email contact with her office.
Pillay hosted World Human Rights Day at U.N. headquarters at the same time as the Nobel ceremony. Pillay's deer-in-headlights response was that she couldn't disappoint the human rights defenders she invited to Geneva by traveling to Oslo. And Secretary General Ban Ki-moon did not attend as he headlined a similar U.N. event in New York.
And what did they discuss at their World Human Rights Day events?
Was it the rights of women in Iran?
No.
Was it the political prisoners of Burma?
Nope.
Did they address the world's dictatorships and how to aid dissidents?
Try again.
Did they expose the lack of press freedom in Russia?
Hardly.
Surely they addressed modern slavery in sub-saharan Africa and the Middle East, no?
Wrong.
One of the topics was the "situation" of black women in Europe. This is an important topic that deserves exploration but to sidestep individual rights around the world is appalling. And why focus on the "situation" of black women in Europe without addressing their "situation" in Africa where, for instance, in Uganda widows are considered sub-human or in Egypt, Somalia, and Eritrea they suffer enforced genital mutilation?
Strange that U.N. decision-makers would opt to take media attention off of Liu's ceremony by hosting their own simultaneous events. Why not honor World Human Rights Day alongside Liu's defenders? Why not say a word about a man who embodies the daily struggle of more than a billion people?
Whatever the explanation, it is disappointing that U.N. leadership allowed the organization to line up alongside the dubious list of countries that boycotted the Nobel ceremony.
Given China's aggressive campaigns against them, Liu and the world's other prisoners of conscience could have used the support.
In Oslo last night one of Norway's leading human rights defenders, Jan Tore Sanner, a member of parliament, delivered a breathtaking speech at a reception for those of us that attended as guests of Liu Xiaobo's wife, Liu Xia-who could not join us because she is under house arrest in China.
Sanner cheerfully welcomed us and lamented: "Our joy, however, is tempered at the thought that tomorrow's ceremony will be conducted in front of an empty chair in Oslo City Hall. Tomorrow evening, when the traditional parade reaches the Grand Hotel, the balcony where the previous Peace Prize winners have greeted the parade will be dark and empty. Liu Xiaobo will not be there. His family will not be there. His friends and lawyers are forbidden to travel.
"In its reaction to the award to Liu Xiaobo, the Chinese regime reveals its true nature, and demonstrates why this award is so deserved, and so necessary... We must not let great powers escape the call to respect human rights and foster democracy. We must not turn a blind eye to the abuses out of fear of economic and political consequences.
"Václav Havel, who Liu himself considers an important inspiration, has said: 'Who else but us who live in freedom should speak up for the rights of those who are not as fortunate?'
"The choice of Liu Xiaobo for the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize places him in a long line of peaceful, patient, but nonetheless principled fighters for the basic human rights of human beings to be respected by their governments: Shirin Ebadi, Aung San Suu Kyi, Andrei Sakharov, Martin Luther King, Jr. and others who have been honored by the Nobel Committee for their work in human rights."
If only the world had more politicians like Jan Tore Sanner and more human rights defenders like Liu Xiaobo.
It is freezing in Oslo right now but the flame of freedom is roaring and China is feeling the heat.
Thor Halvorssen is president of the Human Rights Foundation and founder of the Oslo Freedom Forum.
China slams show as political farce
BEIJING, Dec 11 (AFP) - China's state media on Saturday lashed out at the Nobel Peace Prize committee for the “political farce” of recognising Liu Xiaobo, after an empty chair stood in for the jailed dissident in Oslo.
Beijing said Friday's ceremony in the Norwegian capital, where the prize was presented in absentia to the imprisoned democracy activist, was “political theatre” and a product of a “Cold War mentality”.
“Honouring someone the government dislikes may serve to embarrass China in this year's case, but that is almost all,” the China Daily, an English-language government mouthpiece said in an editorial on Saturday.
“Embarrassing as it may be, the fanfare in Oslo offers a rare opportunity to update and enrich the diplomatic outlook of ordinary Chinese. Not everyone in the world wants China's social and political stability to continue.”Liu, a writer who has advocated political reform in China for more than two decades, was jailed in December 2009 for 11 years on subversion charges after co-authoring Charter 08, a bold petition calling for change.
Beijing has reacted with fury to the award, describing the Norwegian Nobel Committee as “clowns” and threatening that countries would face unspecified “consequences” if they did not stay away from the ceremony.
It also barred the jailed dissident or a representative from travelling to Oslo to receive the award.
The China Daily editorial played down the prize's significance, saying the award was “hardly worth the fuss and hoopla”.
“Quite a few Westerners cherish the naive hope that the prize will 'enlighten the Chinese on human rights' and instigate the changes they wish to see in the country,” the editorial said. “They have been too preoccupied with their own fantasies to realise what is happening in the real world,” it added.
In a commentary on Saturday, the official news agency Xinhua cited a mid-October poll by the Communist Party's Global Times newspaper that indicated 77.1 percent of respondents did not know who had won the peace prize.
It did not mention, however, the poll -- whose questions did not name Liu -- was conducted after a week-long state media blackout on reporting about the award.
“The whole event has become an out-and-out political farce,” the Xinhua commentary said.“It's unimaginable that such a farce, the like of which is more commonly seen in cults, is being staged on the civilised continent of Europe,” the Global Times said in an earlier commentary. |
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