Li Yongfeng reports in Hong Kong-based Asia Weekly (亚洲周刊), translated by CDT’s Linjun Fan:
A message circulated on the Internet on Dec. 9: China’s two well-known intellectuals, Liu Xiaobo and Zhang Zuhua went missing. Zhang showed up a few hours afterwards and stated that he had been taken away by agents of the National Security Department and was questioned on the Charter 08 issue. It was later confirmed that Liu was detained on criminal charges.
Following this, word about Charter 08 started to spread widely. The full text of the document was published on the Internet on Dec. 10. It calls for democratization, improvement of human rights conditions, and refers to the spirit of the Czech Charter 77. The writers also called for all responsible citizens to sign the document. Supporters can submit their signatures easily, no matter where they are: they just need to send an email with specified information to two publicized email addresses.
However, the dissemination of the Charter on the Internet and the gathering of signatures have not been smooth. Several dozen people have been summoned by the police for interrogation. Although the four characters, ling ba xian zhang 零八宪章 (Charter 08), have not been completely blocked on Google.cn or Baidu.com, most of the webpages that contain the four characters cannot be opened inside China. Some people have also said that the email boxes from which they sent out the signatures were sabotaged, and that they sometimes had problems sending emails. However, many “experienced” Chinese netizens were not stopped; they were able to use proxy servers and various other means to access the full text of the document.
The ripple effect has been growing. More than 5,000 people signed the document in the following seven days. They came from all corners of the country and from all walks of life, including students, journalists, lawyers, ordinary employees, civil rights activists, etc. The scale of political mobilization has gone beyond the traditional small circle of activists, which has been a typical phenomenon in the years after the June 4th incident.
More than 250 million Chinese people use the Internet at present, and most urban residents in China have Internet access. Although the Chinese government has established a Golden Shield Project to block politically-sensitive information and has arrested more than 60 netizens who participated in political discussions, the trend of Chinese netizens getting bolder and freer in speech is unavoidable.
Numerous comments and messages posted on the Internet comment on public issues, and mock or criticize the government. More importantly, civil and political movements have transformed significantly because of the new possibilities that the Internet has brought in disseminating information and mobilizing people.
It is unclear whether Charter 08 will bring more influential movements or successes in future. In any case, this event has left behind an enormously meaningful lesson for participants in political activities.
