“Freedom of speech in China: a global problem” was the theme of the day as Scott Simon, Associate Professor, Sociology and Anthropology at Ottawa University hosted a discussion forum focused on three Chinese human rights activists currently in prison for wanting to help their fellow citizens in China.

The first speaker, Maggie Wenzhou Hou, a professor at the University of Ottawa and a Chinese human rights activist, profiled three courageous people who are representative of what happens to those who speak out for justice in China.

Gao Zhisheng is a Christian human rights lawyer in China who was seized by police in February 2009. He has not been seen since. Gao has been repeatedly kidnapped, arrested, imprisoned, and tortured by Chinese authorities for defending the rights of Christians, Uyghurs, Falun Gong practitioners, miners, farmers evicted from their land, and writers.

He is an advocate for justice in the Chinese courts and wrote openly about his own arrest and torture in 2009. Gao was named one of China’s top ten lawyers, and was also nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2008. However, none of this gave him immunity from harassment and persecution by authorities in China.

“Human rights lawyers are the true heroes of our generation. Gao Zhisheng is the man who risked his life to stand courageously against the ultimate brutalities of China… Just like Gandhi, Gao has a very gentle and compassionate heart but also amazing courage and perseverance,” Hou said.

Hou, who worked with Gao in 2004 and 2005, called him “the Prometheus of China.”

“Gao was the only lawyer who met with many Falun Gong victims and was the first Chinese to ask the world to investigate the illegal harvesting of their organs.” His request led to the book “Bloody Harvest” by Canadians by David Matas and David Kilgour.

Hou went on to talk about Liu Xiaobo, a leading intellectual who played a critical role in the 1989 Tiananmen protests and who was one of the main proponents of a petition for human rights and democracy circulated last year. More than a year after his arrest Liu was charged with “inciting subversion of state power,” an assessment regularly used to silence writers in China. A conviction could mean up to 15 years in prison.

“If Gao Zhisheng is China’s Prometheus, Liu Xiaobo is more like Confucius because of his democracy and human rights ideals. Bear in mind, Confucius was revolutionary in his time. Liu is a powerful critic of communist leaders in China. His vision for China’s future is peaceful and moderate,” Hou said.

“While Gao brings light to the darkest and ugliest part of China, Liu is envisioning a future China where everyone’s dignity, freedom, and  rights are respected, where truth can be revealed and reconciliation can be reached.”

Hou also spoke of Zhou Li, “a veterinarian who went to Nigeria” where she was raped by her boss. When Ms. Zhou sought justice for the crime she was dismissed from her job.

“During her campaign for justice, she got to know others who had suffered all types of brutalities and violations. Thus was born a human rights activist. She wrote profusely about how authorities destroy people’s livelihoods and abuse their power.”

Zhou also campaigned for Deng Yujiao, a waitress who had killed a high-ranking member of the Chinese Communist Party who was allegedly attempting to rape her. Deng was subsequently sent to a mental hospital.

“Gao Zhisheng, Lu Xiaobo, and Zhou Li have one thing in common. They all believe that with their efforts, the world will become a better place. Can you in Canada believe that tomorrow the world is really going to be better?” said Hou.

She indicated three large posters, one for each of the human rights defenders profiled, and urged the audience to sign the petitions for each of them.

“The stories we have heard tonight are but three faces of the thousands and thousands of human faces behind that troubling human rights concerns,” said Michael McIntyre, chair of Capital Region Interfaith Council.

“Freedom of speech, freedom of expression, is the most fundamental of all human freedoms. It is so fundamental that to be ultimately uncommunicative, to be ultimately denied the power to communicate is not simply to be mute or apolitical—it is to be dead. Therefore, in this very fundamental sense, freedom of expression and the right to freedom of speech is equivalent to the right to life. We see in these heroic figures that Maggie has brought before us that speaking out has brought them close to death and perhaps in some cases has caused their death.

“So in terms of a democracy, generally our quality of life is dependent … on the quality of the way we communicate with one another, and the degradation of our society and our lives is a function of the degradation of our communication with one another. That seems to me to be a very fundamental premise for life in a democracy and in a more general sense for human life as a whole.”

Alex Neve, Secretary-General of Amnesty International Canada, provided an international context and the need for action from Canada when he said, “The cases of Gao Zhisheng, Liu Xiaobo, and Zhou Li are very clear, very distressing examples of one piece of China’s stark human rights reality—there continues to be no tolerance for dissent, debate, or free expression in today’s China.

“They are but three of the many, many, thousands upon thousands of human faces behind the troubling human rights concern that brings us together this evening; the fact that the fundamental right to freedom of expression continues to be under siege, and is at the heart of so many of the other serious, worrying, human rights violations that mark daily life throughout China.”

He went on to describe how China has moved into the world economy and international political affairs and yet continues to “wallow in long outdated traditions of censorship, secrecy, and harsh, cruel punishment of those individuals who seek to speak their mind.”

Neve further explained the battle for many types of freedom in China including for information, use of the Internet, and freedom to pursue human rights agendas. “Without free expression, the wider human rights struggle is set back irreparably,” said Neve.

He asked why the wider global community has not pressed for change, and what Canada has done to promote human rights in China.

“Governments, including Canada, chose to relegate human rights to one isolated dusty corner of their dealings with China, and refrained from letting it inconveniently intrude on any other fronts in the Canada/China relationship.”

He explained that dialogue with China about human rights “will almost certainly work best if combined with other strategies, including regular public statements of concern when violations take place, and joint efforts with other governments to raise Chinese human rights concerns in multilateral settings such as the UN, the WTO, and other fora.”

The evening ended with questions from the audience and people signing the petitions in support of the arrested human rights defenders Gao Zhisheng, Liu Xiaobo, and Zhou Li.