By David Ferguson
Since publication of my recent articles on the subject of Catherine Sampson's magic democratic underpants, I have been proposing to write specifically on Charter 08. Although The Guardian has not had anything to say on the subject recently, its sister paper The Observer has stepped in to fill the gap. On Sunday, January 4, David Stanway informed us categorically that: "The central propaganda department has warned all domestic media not to interview or write articles about anyone who signed Charter 08. All mention of the document is barred from emails, websites and search engines…"
Just for the record: I am part of China's "domestic media" and am currently in the process of writing a series of articles on Charter 08 – this is one of them – while corresponding by email with Professor Perry Link of Princeton University – the eminent academic who translated the Charter into English – and in order to carry out my work I need to be able to access the Charter, which I can in Chinese, English and French at https://knol.google.com/k/-/-/3jhi1zdzvxj3f/9 (It is also possible to comment on the Charter here). So none of the things that David Stanway has claimed are in fact true.
Given that the Observer's claims about the situation in China with regard to the Charter are patently false, it is disappointing to hear from Professor Link that one of the signatories to the Charter, Zhang Zuhua, still appears to be experiencing police harassment. Although an earlier report I read that his property had been confiscated appears to have been exaggerated, it seems that his bank accounts are frozen and he is being forced to live on an allowance allocated to him by the police. Hopefully the authorities will quickly come to the conclusion that this type of treatment is both unnecessary and counter-productive, and allow him to go on with his lawful business. There is no reason why China should not set itself the target of showing an example to the West in matters like these.
It is also true that although it is easy to access information about the Charter on the web, there are also many web references that are indeed blocked. This is frustrating and exasperating for me on a personal level, as it makes my job harder and it makes me look stupid if I defend a regime engaged in what I consider to be unnecessary censorship. I hope that the authorities will quickly free up access to the Charter, so that it can be examined and criticized on its merits.
But on a broader analysis, I have to accept that my personal view is only one very narrow perspective in a situation like this. The truth is that this kind of reaction is not the prerogative of China, or one-party states, or developing countries, or "non-democratic" governments. Any regime, anywhere in the world, will have its "lines in the sand" beyond which rights of the type championed by the Charter do not apply.
There is a helpfully analogous situation at the moment in the United Kingdom, with a fringe political party called the BNP.i
The BNP is not a proscribed organization. It is a legal political party. Its members and the wider electorate who vote for the party are not thereby engaged in any activity that is illegal, although the party and its supporters are very unpopular with the current governing regime. In this sense BNP activists are in a similar position to the signatories to Charter 08, who are engaged in activity that in principle is permissible under Chinese law but is not popular with the authorities.
As with the Charter 08 signatories, the leadership of the BNP has found itself subject to the attentions of the law. In 2006 the party leader Nick Griffin, made a speech in which he described Islam as a "wicked, vicious, faith", which was secretly taped by BBC reporters and passed on to the police. Mr Griffin was prosecuted for criminal offences relating to race hate, but was cleared at his trial by a jury.
