Twitter Posting, Nobel Fallout Earn Harsh Punishments in China

Well, just when you thought that the human rights situation in China couldn't get any worse, it did. Following the news last month that prominent Chinese dissident Liu Xiabo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, two Chinese women have found their human rights dramatically curtailed.

The first is Liu's wife, Liu Xia, who was placed under house arrest immediately following the announcement of her husband's prestigious honor. While she was able to visit Liu (who is currently serving an 11-year prison sentence for "inciting state subversion") to bring him the news, since then, her freedom of movement has been sharply curtailed.

On Sunday, the Times of London reported that her telephone and Internet connections have been blocked and she has not been allowed outside the flat for almost a month. If she needs to buy anything, she compiles a shopping list. She even has to write down what she wants for her evening meal; police then bring the food from a local restaurant. She is no longer allowed fresh air or exercise.

To add insult to injury, Chinese authorities will not allow Liu Xia to travel to Oslo to accept the prize on her husband's behalf. Family members have often stepped in to accept prizes on behalf of jailed winners of the internationally renowned prize -- Polish Solidarity leader Lech Walesa's wife did so in 1983, and the son of the Burmese opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi delivered the acceptance speech for his mother in 1991.

In this case -- and for the first time in the postwar era -- key aspects of the Nobel ceremony (including the awarding of the gold medal, a diploma and $1.5 million in prize money) will probably be postponed. Meanwhile, the Chinese government is waging an aggressive propaganda campaign to persuade other countries to boycott the ceremony. (So far, only a handful have complied.)

But it's not only Liu Xiabo's wife who has seen her human rights compromised over her husband's "subversive" ideas. On Friday, the Chinese government sentenced a 46-year old human rights activist to one year "of re-education in a labor camp" for "disturbing social order." Re-education through labor is an administrative punishment meted out by the police without trial by an independent court.

Her "crime"? She re-posted (i.e. re-tweeted) a satirical message on Twitter last month encouraging Chinese protesters to smash the Japanese pavilion at the Shanghai Expo.

Yes, it's true. According to Amnesty International, Cheng Jianping, 46, re-posted a message originally sent by her fiancé hinting that Chinese protesters should smash the pavilion and adding the message: "Angry youth, charge!" Cheng's fiancé said that her re-tweet was meant to mock anti-Japanese protesters who had grown in number in China since tensions increased between the countries over a maritime conflict regarding the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands. (Oddly, her fiancé was not charged in the incident.)

But Cheng's real crime -- according to other Chinese activists on Twitter (which is officially banned in China, along with Facebook, YouTube and Amnesty International itself) -- was her online political activism, which included support for Nobel Prize Laureate Liu Xiaobo. Cheng Jianping is thought to be the first Chinese citizen to become a prisoner of conscience on the basis of a single tweet.

There are, of course, scores of other political dissidents in China who have been jailed for supporting greater political, social and religious freedoms in their country. But Amnesty International and several other prominent human rights groups, such as International PEN, the writer's group, are using Liu's detention (and his wife's house arrest) to keep the spotlight on abuses in China.

Liu Xia's house arrest, on top of Cheng's tragically absurd hard-labor sentence for re-tweeting a political joke, reminds us what draconian political restrictions continue to exist within China as it emerges as a global economic power. One can only hope that the future holds brighter days for political freedom.

As the CEO of Twitter, Dick Costolo, posted on his Twitter account Friday night: "Dear Chinese Government, year-long detentions for sending a sarcastic tweet are neither the way forward nor the future of your great people."

Amen. I think I just might re-tweet that.

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