The Chinese government, of its own free will, added to the country’s constitution a commitment to “respect and protect human rights.” That was 2004. In 1998, it signed the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; in 2008, it called for a “national human rights action plan.” Foreign governments can’t be blamed for these commitments. Nor can the Nobel Peace Prize committee. Nor can Liu Xiaobo. He is a former president of the Independent Chinese PEN Centre, but he is in jail because he believed in the Chinese government and constitution.

In the days leading up to today’s Nobel ceremony, a simple chorus continued to grow: “Free Liu Xiaobo.”

It comes from every continent. To these words should be added: “Release his wife, Liu Xia, from house arrest.” And, for that matter, the dozens of people on PEN International’s list of writers in prison. And stop harassing loyal citizens who are merely exercising their constitutional rights.

Liu would probably describe all this as the surface tensions of a profound crisis. Somehow, Beijing cannot see that its actions are undermining its own domestic credibility. The Mandate of Heaven, it used to be said of Chinese imperial dynasties, is lost by those who have it. They lose it when they stop ensuring that justice is done. As for the influence that Chinese authorities seek in the world, it, too, is being undermined. All these wounds are self-inflicted.

Leadership and influence may require economic or military clout. But they are also dependent on trust. And Beijing’s failure to embrace the transparency that comes with freedom of expression and human rights constantly gets in the way of building trust around the world.

What Liu has been calling for is clearly laid out in Charter 08, which has now been signed by thousands of people in China. For Beijing to denigrate it by claiming it represents Western influence reveals a surprising naïveté. The principles of free speech, human rights and equality are sought after as much in Asia as in Europe or the Americas or Africa. Of course, each takes on somewhat different forms in different societies, but they are clearly set out in China’s constitution and have deep roots in its history.

Mao Zedong made this clear in his 1957 essay “Contradictions.” Mao’s favourite novelist, Lu Xun, made fun of authoritarian rulers, saying: “The chief trouble is we cannot stop men thinking.”

There is a classic division between China’s reformers and authoritarians. Many reformers, like Liu, are outside the structures of power. Many are inside. They may want different kinds and amounts of reform. They may not know or like each other. But they share some desire for a more equal and open society.

On the other side are those men of power frightened of change. They seem to be protected by the security forces and some part of the legal system.

The reformers represent an important force. Liu’s Nobel may at first seem to have provoked a crackdown. But in October, the Central Committee held its annual meeting and it was as if the prize had burst the illusion that China could win international respect without political and social reform.

Chinese authorities insist that Westerners are picking on them. The opposite is true. People everywhere want to be friends with China, and not just for economic reasons. Take the tens of thousands of writers in more than 100 countries who belong to PEN. Why would we not want to have an active, friendly relationship with one of the world’s greatest cultures?

The question, then, is what is meant by friendship. In Cold War terminology, you were either for China or against. Friendship meant little more than blind loyalty — no criticism from either side. For those of us who admire and have spent time in China, this is deeply unsatisfying.

More and more people, such as Australia’s Kevin Rudd, point out that in Chinese, a true friend is called a zhengyou — someone who is open and honest, not afraid of criticism, what you would expect with a long-term personal friend. This Nobel could be seen as a gesture of friendship.

Let me put all of this in writer’s terms. The people the regime jails are usually prickly and uncomfortable, like good writers and real friends. Many of those in government want less corruption, better treatment for workers, fewer mine accidents, a proper public education system, decent public health care. They want a fairer society. All of this is central to the message of the writers they arrest.

There is one well-established truth tied to these messages: Freedom of expression, while it can guarantee nothing, is nevertheless the key to making reform possible.

This is why a courageous voice like that of Liu needs to be celebrated. The first simple step is to free him.

This article was first published in the Globe and Mail

Liu Xiaobo is among the writers featured in the new issue of Index on Censorship, Beyond Bars: 50 years of PEN’s Writers in Prison Committee, published on 16 December and available to subscribers today. John Ralston Saul is president of PEN International.

Chinese human rights activists were not cutting Cameron any slack either. Dissident artist Ai Weiwei told the Today programme that Cameron would be committing a crime if he did not push the human rights issue with President Hu Jintao during his two-day trade mission here.

In the end, while Cameron did not publicly utter the L (Liu) word, he did give a speech where he lauded the benefits of democracy, an independent judiciary, and a free media, to students at Beijing University today.  “All the time the government is subject to the rule of law,” he said. “These are constraints on the government and at times they can be frustrating. But ultimately we believe they make our government better and our country stronger.”

The lecture was not broadcast to the public and the human rights element is unlikely to be reported domestically. A quick search on baidu.com a few hours after the speech revealed only one Chinese news outlet, Hong Kong-based Phoenix TV, had reported on Cameron’s more controversial comments.

His phrasing was very diplomatic, perhaps in part because the last time he was here in 2007 he was reportedly called “arrogant” by a Chinese official for his public statements on China’s human rights record. At Beijing University today he was careful to say that he was not suggesting that the UK had “moral superiority” over China and that the UK was “not perfect”.

China has already warned western governments that they risk its wrath if they attend the award ceremony for Liu. “The choice before some European countries and others is clear and simple: do they want to be part of the political game to challenge China’s judicial system or do they want to develop a true friendly relationship with the Chinese government and people?” vice-foreign minister Cui Tiankai said last week. While no government is expected to bow to this threat — several countries, including the UK and France, have already confirmed they are attending —  it’s a different matter when you are in Beijing to smooth the course of deals worth billions of pounds.

China has always been prickly about any public criticism of its peculiar brand of human rights and the stick it wields is money. Indeed a recent study showed the existence of the “Dalai Lama effect” where countries who meet with Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader lose an average of 8.1 per cent in exports to China in the two years after the meeting. A sobering thought for a man on a “vitally important trade mission.”

Dinah Gardner is a regional editor for Index on Censorship

Day-to-day censorship in China falls into two categories. The government’s propaganda authorities supervise websites that are legally licensed to carry news, while those without a license are dealt with by the public security authorities and the internet police. Unlicensed websites that are considered particularly influential may also be overseen by propaganda officials.

All news sites operate on more or less the same lines: a combination of instructions from the authorities and self-censorship. Instructions are issued requiring the deletion of specific articles. Usually, the propaganda authorities will have automated indexers that use key words to identify pages which may be of concern and, once read by the censors themselves, these pages may be flagged for deletion. The authorities may also request the publication of specific content. News sites receiving such instructions must act quickly. Instructions may range from an order to delete content, or all related content, not to publish certain content, or not to ‘play up’ a news item.

Website managers will establish a range of ‘filter words’ in accordance with these instructions, ranging from ‘key words’, to ‘sensitive words’, to ‘safe words’. Generally speaking, articles containing ‘key words’ are deleted, those containing ‘sensitive words’ require reading by the censor before publication; and those containing only ‘safe words’ will be published immediately — although there’s always a risk they may be deleted later after review. If a forum user or blogger publishes an article containing ‘key words’ for that website, it will be removed immediately and not even seen for review. If it contains only ‘sensitive words’, it will not be posted until approved by a censor. If it contains only ‘safe words’ it will be published, but is still subject to review.

Successfully published articles may also fall foul of new instructions issued later. There is no unified system of key words, which means that all websites use different standards for approving or deleting content.

The propaganda authorities have established a points system to monitor the implementation of their instructions for news sites. Points are deducted if the site is found to host ‘undesirable information’ (even if it is not listed as such – there are numerous categories of ‘undesirable information’) or news from a non-approved source. In a serious case, a fine may be imposed. Points gained and lost over the year will affect the result of the website’s annual review.

The Party’s propaganda apparatus and the government’s information offices are inevitably staffed by the same people, and the Party may opt to impose fines in the name of the information office. Sanctions on websites run by newsgathering agencies may also be imposed via the Party’s own system of control – for example by instructing an agency to discipline website personnel.

The oversight exercised by the public security bureau’s internet police is more straightforward – automated or manual checks identify ‘undesirable content’, and instructions for deletion are issued. If instructions are not followed, the case is referred to the telecommunication regulators, who will have the website shut down. The public security authorities also have jurisdiction over news websites, and often issue instructions to delete content not listed in legislation as ‘undesirable’ – for example, anything that shows the public security authorities or the government in a bad light.

Rules of the game
Internet censorship in China is mainly aimed at the control of news and discussion of current affairs. It relies on two supporting pieces of legislation: Measures for the Administration of Internet Information Services (‘the Measures’), issued on 25 September 2000 by the State Council; and Provisions on the Administration of Internet News Information Services (‘the Provisions’), jointly issued by the Ministry of Information Industry and the State Council Information Office (SCIO) on 25 September 2005.

‘The Measures’ established three systems: website licensing and registration; pre-approval for certain types of website; and special approval for certain website functions. They include a list of nine types of ‘undesirable information’, which has come to form the basis for censorship online. Departments of the local public security authorities have responsibility for policing the internet, while administrative enforcement i carried out by bodies such as telecommunications regulators.

The authorities followed up with a range of complementary regulations. For example, on 29 December 2007, the state administration of radio, film and television and the Ministry of Information Industry jointly published Administrative Provisions on Internet Audio-Visual Programme Services. These required providers of online audio-visual services to obtain a licence from broadcasting regulators. In December 2009, a number of online video sharing sites were forced to close as they had not obtained a licence.

The most important regulations establishing pre-approval systems for online censorship are known as ‘the Provisions’. These established a licensing system for websites publishing news. They include: websites run by newsgathering bodies, such as the official sites for the People’s Daily, Xinhua, and the Southern Weekend; news sites established by non-newsgathering bodies – mainly internet portals such as Sina, Sohu and so on; and news sites established by newsgathering bodies to carry their own content exclusively.

The most obvious difference between these categories is the source of news – the first type is permitted to gather news, while the second is permitted only to reprint news from legally authorised sources and may not gather news directly. The SCIO has published two lists of legally authorised news sources. Carrying news from any other source would result in punishment. The requirements for obtaining a licence to carry news are extremely high and only available from the SCIO itself. By the end of 2008, there were 430,000 websites in Guangdong – just eight of which held a licence to carry news.

With this system in place, the Chinese government can use its traditional control over newsgathering to keep a grip on online news publishing. China’s propaganda apparatus has a strong and longstanding hold over news production, including a licensing system, pre-publication approval and post-publication review of content, control over management and personnel decisions, and a day-to-day system of propaganda rules and notifications.

‘The Provisions’ list 11 types of ‘undesirable information’, two more than ‘the Measures’, and again this forms the basis for much of China’s internet censorship. Enforcement of these regulations is usually undertaken by local propaganda authorities, with administrative enforcement carried out by news or telecommunications regulators at provincial level or above.

News and propaganda authorities are not just able to censor the content produced by newsgatherers – annual review of news publication licences and a points system for evaluating internal content management are also used to maintain control over websites republishing news articles. Any website which does not co-operate with content censorship is likely to lose its licence to publish news at the next annual review.

Wen Yunchao is an internet observer based in China who works to remove restrictions on informationand fights for freedom of speech. He was among the second group of signatories of Charter 08

Prizes are recognitions of achievement, but they can also change things.

I hope that this prize will encourage the international community to become more vigilant about human rights abuses in China as they continue to profit from its growing economy; and will give courage to defenders of human rights around the world.

I hope the prize will help convince the Chinese authorities that suppressing freedom of speech and democratic yearnings is not only fundamentally immoral, but ultimately futile. Tyrannies may succeed temporarily in silencing their critics, but societies devoid of freedom of thought will eventually collapse, and regimes that owe their survival to the stifling of thought will be eventually held in derision.

And most importantly, I hope this prize will lead to the immediate release of Liu Xiaobo, and the many other political prisoners in China who have been incarcerated for merely practicing their constitutional right to openly express their opinions.

I call on the Chinese government to put an end to their barbaric suppression of free speech, and to at last recognize the rights and values that affirm the dignity and autonomy of each human life.

Join PEN America’s campaign for Liu Xiaobo’s release here

Ma Jian was a winner of the TR Fyvel Book Award at the 2009 Index on Censorship Freedom of Expression Awards

The year of 1958
Is when the black enemy entered Tibet
Is when the lamas were put in prison
That time was terrifying …
The year of 2008
Is when innocent Tibetans were beaten
Is when people of the world were massacred
That time was terrifying.

I listened over and over to that song, ‘The Terror of 1958–2008’. The accompaniment Dhondup plays is crisp and pleasant, his voice full of painful memories and a desolation beyond his years – he is in his 20s. A friend of mine in Beijing, who is a musician, told me that he preferred Amdo and Kham to Lhasa when he visited Tibet, as he was enchanted by the mandolinaccompanied singers. He said that the mandolin – which originated in Italy – seemed to be more popular there than anywhere else in the world, with countless skilled Tibetan musicians. You hear it played not only in the countryside but also by monks singing in monastery courtyards. Many fund their own simple recordings, a sign of real passion. The mandolin is now known by the Tibetan word dranyen, meaning guitar or lute, and instruments are decorated with bright local colours and motifs. Tibet has made the instrument its own.

Someone sent me a photo of Dhondup. Round-faced, with long narrow eyes, he appeared fashionable, dressed in black hunting gear with lightened hair. Apparently he used to sing songs of love and home: now that he was breaking the silence of a dark night, would he become a target for hunters? I heard that he was once detained and I would not have blamed him for opting to fall silent – falling silent at gunpoint is normal for us now, with many talented singers opting to stick to traditional songs and propaganda in exchange for fame. But Dhondup chose not to castrate himself that way – the next time he sang it was not one song, but 13. The album Scarred Heart sold 5,000 copies, selling out in many parts of Amdo. Tipped off that the police were preparing to arrest him for performance and distribution of ‘reactionary songs’, Dhondup fled his home. He had just got married. Several days later, the road-weary policemen caught up with him in a Xining hotpot restaurant as he was drinking with friends and detained him.

One of his relatives is a monk at a renowned lamasery. He has access to the internet and told me over Skype that the album was available online, with videos of Dhondup singing on mountaintops and grasslands. ‘He looks great in Tibetan clothing, just like a star.’ His admiring tone turned my sorrow into joy. I really wanted to know what the lyrics meant, so we listened again several times as he explained, and the melodies travelled though limitless space to be heard by me, as if at a secret time we were burdened with the same fate. The lyrics brought tears to my eyes.

I’ve never seen the Dalai Lama
So I feel that I’m a poor Tibetan
I didn’t join the protest in 2008
So I feel that I’m a useless Tibetan
I didn’t hoist the Snow Lion
So I feel I’m useless even as a man.

The recordings banned in Tibet are of course not to be found in Beijing, but I could hear and see Dhondup online. Young Tibetan commentators praised him as an ethnic hero and applauded his courage. But as news of Dhondup reached the outside world and reports started to appear, the songs were deleted. At this point I met a Tibetan who had studied in India. It seemed as if he had appeared simply to translate the lyrics – I never heard from him again, very mysterious. He translated two songs into Chinese, and anyone hearing them could not fail to be moved. I noted down this passage:

The sorrow that a man of the Holiness doesn’t return home
The sorrow that my fellow became separated
The sorrow that freedom doesn’t come to Tibet
This is my pain without a wound …

This is considered a reactionary song. I remember at the end of 2008 the deputy head of the Lhasa Public Security Bureau announced the arrest of 59 ‘rumour-mongers’ for ‘inciting ethnic sentiment’. These particular rumours were spread by ‘illegally downloading reactionary songs, and selling them to the public on CD and as MP3 and MP4 files’. But this may confuse many – the concept of ‘reactionary songs’ is not a common one. It has its own unique meaning. As a Chinese commenter once said: ‘Many ask what totalitarianism means, but it’s like asking what rain means – it’s hard to express, but you know when you’re caught in it.’ So when a Times reporter asked me what constituted a reactionary song, I could easily list at least ten. Perhaps she was only surprised by the strict ban on songs that merely mentioned our exiled spiritual leader. Straight talkers like Tashi Dhondrup are rare, but he dared to sing:

Your holiness Dalai Lama
Please no longer be a wanderer
There are many pious people in Tibet
We are always waiting for you by the side of your throne.

Other reactionary songs are more oblique, using a white tower or golden sun to refer to the Dalai Lama.

If we view reactionary songs as a product of the past 50 years, it has clearly already become a tradition: a tradition of protest, a tradition of not submitting, a tradition that spreads endlessly. Many of these songs are written by Tibetans in exile, but also by those within China’s borders – at all times and in every region, not just today or only in certain cities or villages. Some songs are blunt and immediately banned, some more subtle and so tacitly allowed to circulate. It would be an interesting topic for an academic study. But for us – that is, for my generation – memories of reactionary songs go back to the 1980s, such as these popular lyrics from 1989:

We haven’t bought India
Nor sold Lhasa
The Dalai Lama is not homeless
The Norbulingka will be yet more splendid
We Tibetans are looking forward
And in one or two years
We’ll return in freedom

I’ve been told that normally servile Tibetan cadres from the local Academy of Sciences once got drunk at a festival celebration and choked back tears as they sang these words.

It seems normal to us now when the authorities stamp on reactionary songs. But only in Lhasa did they arrest as many as 59 at once for distributing music, and I heard they were mostly students. What was the purpose? Were they so angry at the popularity of these songs that a major arrest was necessary to serve as a lesson to the rest? Or could they not come up with any ‘splittists’ and had to make downloading a few songs of home and the Dalai Lama into a major crime? Or are those who rely on the ‘anti-splittist’ struggle for their living, creating enemies for the great Party?

Dhondup was swiftly punished – sentenced to 15 months of re-education through labour and sent back to his home village, once populated by nomadic herders. One day a Tibetan friend of mine, whom I hadn’t seen for a long time, came to visit me. He is a fine poet in our native language and has travelled widely. But I had no idea he was also related to Dhondup. However, the Dhondup he spoke of was a wayward youth who liked to get drunk, sing, and chase grassland girls. At a meal to celebrate his release from detention for singing ‘The Terror of 1958–2008’, he even needed stitches after a drunken fight with a young Rimpoche (reincarnated Tibetan lama). Not without pride, my friend told me: ‘He’s a hero now. When I ask at roadside stalls in Xining if they’ve got his songs they make sure I’m not police or undercover, then pull out a big bag full of his recordings. They’re all copies of course.’

Woeser is the author of Notes on Tibet, which is banned in China. She writes a blog and was one of the original signatories of Charter 08

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“In the long run, it’s a good thing,” says Rebecca MacKinnon, expert on internet censorship in China and fellow at the New America Foundation. “It shows that people who stand up for their beliefs will not simply disappear into prison to be forgotten by the world. The tens of thousands who signed Charter 08, some of whom were questioned by police or disciplined by employers for having done so, will be encouraged that they’re on the right side of history and that their risk wasn’t a wasted effort.”

Now 54, Liu was a young university professor at the time of the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989. He left his post at Columbia University to join the pro-democracy movement in Beijing, and held a hunger strike in support of the students.  As an advocate for non-violent activism, he disarmed a group of workers who had arrived with guns to defend the protesters, and helped to evacuate the square on the last day of the demonstrations, preventing further bloodshed. Liu was arrested for his involvement in the protests, and spent two years in prison.

After criticising China’s one-party system and calling for dialogue between the Chinese government and the Dalai Lama of Tibet, Liu was sentenced to three years of “re-education through labour” in 1996. He had only recently married Liu Xia, who was not allowed to visit him for 18 months because they had not managed to obtain a marriage certificate before his imprisonment. Eventually, their lawyer won them dispensation to marry in the labour camp.

In 2004, Liu Xiaobo wrote an essay attacking the use of “subversion” charges to censor, and ultimately silence, journalists and activists. Following the essay’s publication, Liu’s telephone lines and internet connections were blocked.

After nearly 20 years of activism came Liu’s most famous contribution to the campaign against human rights abuses — and the one for which he has been punished most severely — Charter 08. The manifesto, published on the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, called for reform and democracy in China, and was signed by 303 Chinese intellectuals.

On 9 December, the night before the document’s release, police arrested Liu at his home in Beijing. They confiscated his computer and other materials from the campaign. He was held in detention with no outside communication until 31 December, when his wife was finally allowed to visit him.

After Liu’s arrest, almost all of the original signatories were interrogated in an attempt to gather evidence against him, but his trial lasted only a day.

While the award will highlight the increasingly harsh treatment of dissidents in China and support the struggle for freedom of speech, there are fears that international support for human rights activists may lead to a backlash.

Isabel Hilton, leading expert on China and trustee of Free Word, told Index: “Judging by the government’s response, it is not going to make Liu Xiaobo’s life any easier, but when the history of free expression and freedom of ideas is written, he and the other signatories of Charter 08 will be remembered as courageous citizens who sought the best for their country.”

Join PEN America’s campaign for Liu Xiaobo’s release here.