Beijing - China has charged dissident writer Liu Xiaobo
with subversion, the government said on Wednesday, in a move
apparently linked to Liu's organization of a charter for democratic
reform.
'Liu has been engaged in agitation activities, such as spreading
of rumours and defaming of the government, aimed at subversion of the
state and overthrowing the socialism system in recent years,' the
official Xinhua news agency quoted a police statement as saying.
Liu, who was arrested last November, had 'confessed to the charge
in preliminary police investigation,' the agency said.
Hundreds of supporters, including leading international writers,
scholars, lawyers and rights advocates, had urged China to release
Liu.
He was arrested two days before the release of 'Charter '08,' in
which 303 signatories set out their ideals for transforming China
into a liberal democracy and lament a lack of 'freedom, equality and
human rights' under the ruling Communist Party.
'By departing from universal values and a basic political
framework, 'modernization' has been a disastrous process that has
stripped people of their rights, corrupted normal human feelings and
destroyed people's dignity,' they said.
Charter '08 demands sweeping changes to create a 'free, democratic
and constitutional state,' and urges the release of all political
prisoners.
It is modelled on the Charter '77 written by intellectuals in the
former Czechoslovakia.
It links its blueprint for change to China's 1989 democracy
movement, which the party quashed with a brutal military crackdown.
Apart from arresting Liu, 53, police have reportedly questioned or
detained at least 30 other signatories of Charter '08.
US-based Human Rights Watch earlier called Liu's arrest 'the most
significant Chinese dissident case in a decade.'
China routinely says all such human rights cases are handled
'according to the law' and rejects as 'interference' any appeals by
foreign groups and politicians.
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