If China Thought Stopping The Golden Pen Press Freedom Award Winner From Going To Sweden To Accept The Prize Would Dampen Criticism, Then It Sure Got That Wrong

Philip Stone June 3, 2008

It was intended to be embarrassing – for the second year in a row the winner of the Golden Press Freedom Award is Chinese – signifying the continuing lack of press freedom in that country, and China responded by stopping the winner and his family from traveling to Sweden to receive the prize and furthermore ordered its China Newspaper Association to boycott the event.

But that just made the criticism of China even more vocal. And even if award winner Li Changqing couldn’t show up, his longtime college friend Li Jianhong, who herself had fled China after kidnapping and arrest a few years ago, read his speech with great emotion. To the 1800 media executives from around the world, plus diplomats and Sweden’s King Carl XVI Gustaf there was no doubt who was in the press freedom dog house.

Indeed the King in his opening address remarked that it was Sweden that passed the world’s first freedom of the press law back in 1766, so Sweden was a fitting site for this presentation. As he pointed out, “To be able to read, to have access to the written word is critical for the development of democracy – a democratic society requires openness. Unfortunately, there are too many people around the world who don’t have that right.”

Award winner Li Changqing, then a reporter and deputy news director of the Fuzhou Daily in Fujan Province (he was fired), had been imprisoned for three years for “fabricating and spreading false information” after he had disclosed in 2004 an outbreak of dengue fever before health officials in his hometown had alerted the public. China was particularly sensitive to this as it had been severely criticized previously for suppressing news of the sars outbreak.

George Brock, the outgoing President of the World Editors Forum (WEF) and Saturday editor of the Times of London set the tone when he told the assembly that in most other countries such a journalist would be honored for such reporting  but “In China, disclosing such facts is an imprisonable offense.”

Award winner Li told the assembly via his friend exactly what conditions are like for a journalist in China. “It’s a risky job to be a journalist in China. To be a good journalist not only needs wisdom but moral courage. In my 10 years as a journalist I committed fraud, because I had no choice. I was fearful, because I had no choice. I gave up because I had no choice.”

He also recognized the symbolism of the award. “I am deeply aware that this is not an honor only to me in particular, but also an award in general to all my colleagues who are bravely devoting themselves to freedom of expression, especially those in China.”

This was the second year in a row that a Chinese journalist received the award. Last year the prize went to Shi Tao, the dissident journalist whose identity was given up by Yahoo to Chinese authorities and who is now serving a 10-year sentence on charges of "leaking state secrets" for writing an e-mail about media restrictions in the run-up to the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 2004. Yahoo’s information allowed state security authorities to trace the message to a computer that Shi used at the newspaper where he worked, the Dangdai Shang Bao (Contemporary Business News).

Yahoo later was seriously embarrassed in US Congressional hearings for doing that and was urged and did reach a financial settlement with Shi’s family. But Congress is still not happy with what American companies like Yahoo and Cisco may be doing in China to further their business at the expense of freedom of speech and the press.  Last month during further Congressional hearings Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee's human rights panel, said he was considering drafting new legislation similar to a pending House of Representatives proposal that would severely restrict what American companies do to further their business in Internet-restricting countries.

Li noted that two journalists from the same country winning twice in a row the Press Freedom Award is no compliment to their country. “The facts that Chinese journalists have gotten the Golden Pen of Freedom Award two years in succession, and that China has become the world's largest jailer of the journalists, have shown that the current situation of free expression in China is of growing concern to the whole world. China is a land that needs to be travelled with the voices of conscience and a nation that needs to be saved by the truth.” Li said.

Although Li could not come to Sweden, the Stockholm daily Dagens Nyheter managed to interview him a week ago in a friend’s Beijing apartment. "I am very grateful for the Golden Pen Award, but I wish it weren't always Chinese journalists who are the recipients,” he told the newspaper. “If China's freedom of speech were better, Chinese writers wouldn't have to receive the award," he declared.

And his thoughts on China, “The fact is, I love China and I feel a great deal of hope for the country. All I want is for China to become a real democracy with real freedom. Common people should have greater rights. If they receive more rights, they will also have to take greater responsibility."

As for the articles he wrote that landed him in prison and destroyed his career as a journalist, “I thought long and hard before I wrote the articles. I was aware of the risks, but I could never imagine the consequences would be so serious."

The article didn’t say whether the correspondent asked him, given what he has gone through, if he would he do it again?

Would you?