Dr. Liu Xiaobo, board member and former president of the Independent Chinese PEN Center (ICPC), was taken away from home by police on 8th December 2008 for his involvement in drafting “Charter 08” and launching a signature campaign. Since then he has been detained under “residential surveillance” by Beijing authorities without charge and unlawfully kept in an unknown place away from his family who has been so far allowed to see him only twice.

The lawyer for a prominent Chinese writer secretly detained six months ago called on authorities Monday to free his client or formally charge him.

While the whole world commemorates the 20th anniversary of the violent suppression of the pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square, the Chinese Independent Pen Association appeals to the Chinese government to respect and protect the boundaries of individual rights and stop detaining and holding under house arrest numerous of our Mainland members.

Appended below is an appeal letter to China's president, Hu Jintao, expressing "deep concern with the ongoing arbitrary detention of literary critic and former professor of literature Liu Xiaobo" and urging for his immediate release. The letter notes that "For the international community to take seriously China's oft-stated commitment to respect human rights and the rule of law, and for China's own citizens to trust the judicial system to redress legitimate grievances, it is urgent that China's central leadership ensure that no one be arrested or harassed simply for the peaceful expression of his or her views."

The 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights witnesses
more human rights violations in China. A couple of days ago, police in
Shanghai detained Liu Xiaobo, an intellectual and human rights activist, who
had been in and out of prison in the last two decades because of his
activism.