Current Affairs

Symbolism has taken the voice away from writers and artists, each and every demonstration in Hong Kong and China has been challenged by security laws, but voices such as Ai Weiwei, or writers such as Zu Zhiyong are either in exile or prison. Symbols have become so important, the blank sheet of paper or the umbrella have become weapons to challenge the state, they shout for the voices locked up under draconian laws that have imprisoned voices that once challenged, criticized and brought dialogue.

Jimmy Lai, the editor and owner of Apple Daily, received a five year prison sentence, his crime was that he published a popular daily newspaper that reported on the student protests. He ran headers on the events and reported on the news of the protests that shook Hong Kong, which led to China’s government placing pressure on the authorities of Hong Kong.

Language has always been shrouded by symbolic events, the lighthouse in To the Lighthouse was a phallic object and questioned the sexuality of the main protagonists and the author. But as Mao said, “a clean sheet of paper” on which “the newest and most beautiful words can be written,” makes the possible dangerous in the eyes of the CCP. But it is within the structures of a political narrative that determines whether a writer spends their time shovelling salt, which was where Ai Weiwei spent his childhood, because his father an intellectual had fallen foul of Mao, and failed to acquiesce to authority.

But there are other writers who move on from the symbolism of the obvious, they reach into the political canon and demand change, they demand the end of repressive mechanisms that differentiate the free voice from the politically acceptable and find a means to challenge the state. The world is littered with these writers, writers such as Liu Xiaobo, a noble prize winner, signatory to Charter 08,  philosopher, founding member of PEN and prisoner who was only released from an eleven year sentence when he was close to death.

Zhang Guiqi, is commonly known by his pen name, Lu Yang and he is a poet and teacher from Shandong province in eastern China. He has been a founder, editor and publisher for online poetry platforms. One of his platforms the Contemporary Poetry Platform was forced to shutdown in 2007 after a directive from the PRC government censors. In 2008, he was a signatory to Charter 08, which called for greater human rights protection and political reform in China.

 Zhang Guiqi, a poet has been given a six year sentence of imprisonment and a further three years deprivation of his political rights, this two years after Zhang’s initial detention. So the authorities in China who held him for two years prior to his trial have detained him for “inciting subversion of state power.” The reason for his arrest relates to a video that he shared with a small group on social media. The video featured a recording of Zhang, calling for President Xi Jinping to step down and for an end to the CCP regime. Zhang’s wife shared with Free Radio Asia, how she has been persecuted by the authorities since his arrest, the authorities have forcibly closed a private teaching school that she owned with Zhang, which has led to her loss of living.

Ma Thida, Chair of Pen said that “The heavy sentence handed down to Zhang Guiqi, for a video he shared with a group of less than a hundred people, is a damning example of the level of repression faced by anyone who publicly criticizes the regime in China”.

Xu Zhiyong is a case that is worrying, after his arrest he was held in pretrial detention, what the PRC call “residential surveillance”, which allows the PRC authorities to hold him for six months in solitary confinement in a secret location. On 6^th February 2021, Li Qiaochu, an award winning human rights defender, honorary ICPC member and Xu Zhiyong’s fiancee, was also detained, following her disclosure of Xu’s torture and ill treatment while in detention, she disclosed that Xu had been denied food and water, and that he had been subjected to the ‘Tiger Chair’.

The United Nations Working Group on Arbitary Detention have expressed grave concern, stating that his deprivation is arbitrary in nature, resulting from the legitimate exercise of his rights to freedom of opinion and expression (UDHR Art. 19). In conclusion they called on the PRC government to ensure Xu Zhiyong’s immediate release.  

An idea of what Xu Zhiyong is going through was written in news.com.au. “Sitting down may not sound like torture , but strapped into a metal tiger chair for days, it is sheer agony. I sat until my buttocks bled”. There were reports of beatings while suspended in the air by handcuffs. Dehydration, starvation, blinding with light, solitary confinement and exposure to extreme cold are some of the ways that China deals with those who have challenged the law. “Police keep instruments of torture in their offices,” a former guard told Human Rights watch – “electric batons, hammers, iron bars and chilli oil to pour into the nose”.  

There has been some changes to the techniques used, police often use towels and padding to hide the marks. “They wrapped a cloth around my wrists then they handcuffed me. They tied a rope to the chain between the handcuffs and hung me on a pulley on the ceiling, my toes barely touched the ground. They shocked my hands with an electric baton, then put it into my right hand pocket to hit my genitals… I could not take it after about seven or eight minutes”, said a former inmate.

These are the dangers faced by anyone in China, whether criminal or dissenter, just a blank sheet of paper could lead to being taken into Police custody. Xu Zhiyong is being held for being a capable dissenter, he understands the law and yet torture has been reportedly used on him, his fiancee who spoke up was arrested, a lawyer and intellectual in her own right was that she had reported that Xu had been tortured.

Where China goes from here is dependent on how you see the value that these voices have in change, just gentle words, poems and words written in anger are part of any states literary genre. As the state devalues their own authority through forced arguments that have no base when free expression by the individual has values towards changing the elements that corrupt a state sponsored by the deaf and hard of hearing. But they do see the blank sheets of paper without words or umbrellas  in a multitude of colours used as a mechanism that challenges the repressive mechanisms of fear, torture and imprisonment.