Taipei, Taiwan – 2 February 2012 - February 1st was the opening day of the 2012 Taipei International Book Exhibition at the World Trade Center in Taiwan.
LRF is currently attending the Taiwan International Book Exhibition at the Taipei World Trade Center to launch our newest publication, Strive for Freedom-Selected Writings of Liu Xiaobo. This book is a collection of essays that Liu submitted to LRF's China Observer (观察) website between 2002 and 2008. For more on the book exhibition and LRF's participation, please see our press release and this article from Focus Taiwan.
For those who couldn't make it to the book exhibition, we wanted to share these photos with you:
LRF's booth at the exhibition. (More photos after the jump!)
Listen to Harry Wu read from Laogai: The Machinery of Repression in China at the 2009 Human Rights Banned Book Fair in New York:
The day after I returned to campus, a meeting was called. The topic of the meeting, I was dismayed to learn, was Wu Hongda [Harry's Chinese name]. Throughout the three-hour meeting I was accused of being bourgeois, of leaving campus to escape criticism, and told that the opinions I had voiced during the May 2 meeting were “poisonous.” I attempted to defend myself but to no avail. In the end, I was told to write a self-criticism. I reluctantly agreed. Not long afterwards we were dismissed for summer vacation. Back in Shanghai, my parents urged me to cooperate and stay out of trouble.
I returned to school in the fall to find the political atmosphere even more oppressive. More and more classmates and teachers were being labeled as rightists. I was told my previous self-criticism was unacceptable and ordered to rewrite it. I was also ordered to hand over my personal diary. Then on October 20 a banner appeared outside the cafeteria. It read: “Wu Hongda’s Counterrevolutionary Crimes” and went on to list a series of supposed offenses. My name was crossed out with a large red X.
Be sure to check the HRIC video feed of events - watch for Harry Wu around 4:45 (EST) this afternoon!
Editor's note: This event has already passed. Please listen to audio of Harry's speech here.
There are quite a few human rights organizations participating: International Campaign for Tibet, Students for a Free Tibet, the Uyghur American Association, PEN American Center/Independent Chinese PEN, Human Rights Watch, Freedom House, and Reporters Without Borders (hope we're not forgetting any!). For more on the Book Fair, click here.
