CHINE : l’histoire de cet homme que le pays tente d’EFFACER – Documentaire Complet – AMP

Liu Xiaobo : l’homme que Pékin veut effacer. 👉 Abonnez-vous pour découvrir des documentaires du monde entier : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbmLrvPxk0iqk6eT3zjw_Vg/?sub_confirmation=1

00:00 Les années Tian’Anmen
06:00 L’écrivain dissident
11:00 Le premier emprisonnement
16:00 La surveillance d’État
21:00 Charte 08
27:00 Le Nobel interdit
33:00 Le martyre d’une nation
39:00 La machine à censurer
45:00 La résistance en exil
51:00 L’héritage impossible

Prix Nobel de la paix, penseur, dissident.
Pendant 30 ans, il a défié le régime chinois — et le régime a tenté d’effacer jusqu’à son nom.

Dans ce film exceptionnel, ses proches, les témoins de Tiananmen, les artistes censurés et les militants racontent l’histoire que la Chine a interdit de raconter :
celle d’un homme qui croyait encore en la liberté, même derrière les barreaux.

“L’homme qui a défié Pékin”
Réalisé par : Pierre Haski

TOUS DROITS RÉSERVÉS

#Documentaire #Reportage #Enquête #chine #histoire

People were coming from everywhere to tell us: Students were killed there. Students were killed in such
and such a place. After that, it was no longer possible to
enter or leave the square. It was surrounded by the army. To avoid a blood feud,
I smashed a rifle, a semi-automatic weapon, on the stele. It’s good. I know I was lucky to have survived
the events of the Beijing Spring, while so many others
perished in the massacre. I have always carried within me a feeling
of guilt and responsibility. Because not only are they dead,
but the government is still covering up what happened in Tiananmen Square. Who will allow us to detach ourselves from this
story, to allow us to discover the truth,
to allow us to discover the truth. These images are the last ones
we filmed of Liouciaoubo. These images are the last ones
we filmed of Liouciaoubo. Discreet as always,
to evade police surveillance. An hour of discussion in a suburb
of Beijing, in this year when the city is hosting the Olympic Games. Liushaobo was, in 2008,
the most prominent of the Chinese dissidents. One of the heroes of Tiananmen, the
one who stood up to the Beijing regime, the one who
protected the students. This is the story of the man
who defied Beijing. A few weeks after this encounter,
her life would take another dramatic turn. The Chinese regime will make it
disappear for good. Because the quiet man with whom we
shared tea was not content, in this year 2008, to recount
his memories of the Beijing spring. In utmost secrecy,
with hundreds of intellectuals, he was developing Charter 08, which called for
the democratization of China. A text that will once again make him the
regime’s number one enemy and that will earn him universal recognition. Here he is, winner of the Peace Prize, alongside Vasslava Vell
and Nelson Mandela. But Liou Qioubo is languishing
in a Chinese prison. So in Oslo, the Nobel Prize is
officially awarded to an empty chair. This empty chair,
this silent Nobel laureate, it is time to give him back his voice. We travelled across several continents
to find his loved ones, his companions on the road,
the places that marked his journey. A journey that intersects with the entire history of
recent China. A journey of courage and truth. A history that Beijing is doing everything
to erase from our memory. Liushiaogou made his
first public appearance in Beijing in the mid-1980s. The 80s,
a period of incredible freedoms for China as it turned
the page on Maoism. The country is beginning to open up to the world
and copy some of its new passions. On the campus of the prestigious
Normal University in the capital, Liu Xiobo is a young researcher
in Chinese literature. His outspokenness is well
known to his colleagues. But for his American translator,
Perry Link, it was during a conference in 1986 that the young
intellectual changed dimension. There was a conference in Beijing,
organized in honor of the 10th anniversary of what is called the new period
in Chinese literature. The theme of this conference was
the progress made since Mao Zedong. That was a good idea
and a good conference. Lucia Obo was one of the young
people on site and her intervention had a bombshell effect. I remember that one of my colleagues
attended that conference. When he came back, he told me:
A black horse has appeared. And, mimicking his typical kiss,
he told me how Lucia Obo had issued a critique of the style:
Contemporary Chinese literature, like ancient culture,
is a pile of rubbish. It gave him immense visibility. And in the years 87, 88, 89,
Luzia Obou was just a star. Liouciahoubo, when he goes to speak
at a university, there is… a crush at the entrance. We cannot enter
the amphitheaters. Initially, my thinking was very simple. I hoped to be able to become an
authentic person, a worthy person. But within a political system like
China’s, if you are an intellectual, then you will have to
express your own ideas. You will have to write essays. And from that point on, conflict with
the government becomes inevitable. Liu Xiobo, in 1986,
thus became a star of Chinese intellectual life. The young researcher, however, never attended
school before entering university. He was born in 1955 in Cheung Chun, in the cold, industrial northeast
of China, on the borders of Russia, North Korea and Mongolia. Liushaobo’s father is a
literature professor and a staunch communist. But this will not protect his family
during the cultural revolution that Mao unleashed in 1966. The past must be wiped clean,
cry the Red Guards of the Great Helmsman,
who impose their violence everywhere. The teachers, like Liu
Xiobo’s father, became enemies of the people. Mao closed all schools in the country. Liu Xiobo is only 11 years old. The young boy has nothing left
to do with his days. He is too young to become a
Red Guard like his older brothers. So, he occupies his time
by reading a lot. Her family managed to keep
many books, including foreign ones, even when they were sent
to Inner Mongolia for re-education. The
material living conditions are difficult,
but without school and without constraints, Liushiaoubo is happy in this
childhood of great freedom. Su Yuyú, a Chinese philosopher,
was a Red Guard during those years. He became one of the most famous
liberal intellectuals in his country. And he was one of those who had written
to the Nobel Committee to plead for Liù Xièo Bo. In 1968, when Mao Zedong forcibly exiled us
to the countryside, precisely because we were educated young people. It was a great shock to me. The poverty and lack of education I
discovered there made me realize the gap between the propaganda of the
Chinese Communist Party and social reality. The socialist system was not as
superior as we were led to believe. When he left adolescence, he became a house painter in his city of Cheung Chun,
the former capital of Manchurri, which has now become a huge
metropolis of seven million inhabitants. The young Chinese man was
therefore never educated. He educated himself. This is one of the paradoxes
of the cultural revolution. By closing schools,
Mao Zedong may have lost control of a portion of Chinese minds who then had to
construct their own way of thinking. I am very small. When I was very young,
I read a lot of books, especially French literary works. For example, Zola’s J’accuse. Their role as public intellectuals, which
Zola assumed in France, has a profound influence on intellectuals in China. In addition to writing his own
literary works, he was also concerned with society and
important public affairs of his time. Even today, all intellectuals in China can invoke the name of Zola. In 1976, Mao’s death brought an
end to the Cultural Revolution. Cultural. A year later,
Chinese universities reopened. Liushua Bo immediately enrolled
at Qiang Qun University, eagerly plunging into an ocean
of knowledge he had been deprived of. At 25, with his degree in hand,
he left his home region to move to the capital
and become the young phenomenon of Chinese intellectual life. Beijing, in the late 1980s, exuded freedom, so far removed from the countryside in which Yushuaobo grew up. In the center of the capital,
the new international bookstore is a magnetic attraction for young people
who come to express their desires and new dreams. I love French literature. I’m a fan of Molière and Maupassant. I plan to study in the United States,
so I am mainly looking for books to improve my
English, which is insufficient. Liushia Abou has completed her thesis on
aesthetics and human freedom. Freedom, of which he is already a champion
among Chinese intellectuals. He is 33 years old and would now like to
discover the West whose literature nourished his youth. In the summer of 1988,
when the first American fast-food restaurant opened in Beijing,
Louis Xiu Bo made the reverse journey. On his way to America,
he made his first stop in Hong Kong, where he discovered a different side of China. A modern China, a China that
respects freedoms. Next, he stops in Oslo. This first contact with
the West was short-lived. He is extremely bored and gets angry with
the sinologists at the Norwegian university, whom he calls usurpers. Finally, in the fall of 1988,
he landed in New York. Andrew Nathan,
the dean of Chinese studies at the prestigious Columbia University,
offered him a visiting professorship. I don’t think the inviting university,
or even less the United States government, or anyone else,
had any plans for this man. It’s just that I was asked to
invite him and he was curious to come himself. It is true that in the United States,
at that time, we were rather optimistic
about the direction of China. Deng Xioping came here
wearing a cowboy hat. It’s funny to think about it now with
hindsight, but we thought China was
on the path to some form of democratization and we were
therefore interested in exchanges with these intellectuals. But for him, this was in no way
part of a political strategy. It was his idea to come here. In
New York, in the cold of early 1989, live dozens
of young Chinese intellectuals. There is the young Ai Weiwei,
now a global figure in contemporary art,
but also the poet Bailing, who arrived in New York a few months earlier
and who agreed to host the Yuziogu. He asked me: Bailing,
can you put me up? I answered yes.
You can stay at my place. I still remember picking him up
at the airport with several Chinese dissidents who accompanied me
because he was already known outside. So, every evening at my house,
there were many meetings between Chinese dissidents. We always had the option
of meeting outside or in the living room of my apartment. This
small community of expatriate Chinese intellectuals lives in the
Queens neighborhood of New York. Liuchao Bo is fascinated by bookstores,
museums, and galleries. In
March, he visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art, one of the world’s largest museums,
on the edge of Central Park. He
himself wrote about the Metropolitan Museum in New York,
about observing these incredible giant paintings and beginning to feel,
almost in an existential sense, the emptiness of human life, even in the West. And he said to himself: We still have to compare
China to its international standards, but while maintaining, as a second
task, a critical spirit towards the standards themselves. The West is not a model. The West has its own problems. While Liushiaobo was in New York,
Huyao Bang, the former general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, died of a
heart attack on April 15, 1989 in Beijing. He had been forced to resign two years
earlier, pushed out by the most conservative elements of the regime. Because Huyaobang was the architect
of China’s opening up in the 80s. In universities,
posters immediately sprang up to pay tribute
to this father of reform. Small groups of students form
and some converge on Tiananmen Square, where they
meet at the end of the day. Two days later, on April 17,
a new gathering was organized in the square in the evening. This time, there are nearly 3,000
students and they are presenting an initial list of demands. They range from restoring
Hüyao bang’s vision of democracy and fighting corruption
to abolishing censorship. Aigouan, hüzui. Aigouan, hüzui.
Aigouan, hüzui. Yenlun, ziou.
Yenlun, ziou. Yenlun, ziou. Yenlun, ziou.
Yenlun, ziou. Yenlun, ziou.
Yenlun, ziou. Yenlun, ziou. In New York, Liu Xiabo follows the events
in the apartment of Wu Ping, the eldest of the small group
of Chinese dissidents in exile. Liu Xiabo quickly realized that this was
the beginning of a great movement for democracy. We decided to jointly publish open letters and statements on two occasions. And for these stances, at
the time, it was different than today. There was no internet. The majority of people in China
didn’t even have a telephone. So we used fax
to send our statements to Beijing. Our friends in Beijing collected them
and stuck them all over the city, including at the university,
on the famous Democracy Triangle. We were told that our texts
had generated a lot of interest. On April 22, during the
official funeral of Huyau Bang, students once again invaded Tiananmen Square. The party leaders gathered
in the People’s Palace are beginning to get scared. Before June 4th,
Liuz Yaobo held a leading position among Chinese intellectuals. He knew that if he did not return
to China soon, he would exclude himself and lose his status. It is clear that his
political ambitions also supported his decision. If we had all gone back to China at that
time, it might have been the best chance to change the country. But he was the only one who said: OK,
you can buy my ticket now. Ruping and I were both
a little worried. Going back to China
might have been dangerous. On
April 27, 1989, even though the authorities had hardened their stance, tens of thousands
of students still marched from their campus to Tiananmen Square. When Liushiaobo arrives in the
Chinese capital, he immediately wants to meet the leader of the movement. He is guided to the campus where
Wuer-Khaïsi lives, who was elected a few hours ago as
president of the Autonomous Federation of Students. At that time, the name Lou Chiaoubo
was already famous among all the students. And there he was, knocking on
my bedroom door to see me. But here I was, participating in
an emergency meeting in my dorm with student leaders
from different universities. I thought to myself: in Lusyaobo or not,
I have to leave him at the door. You can’t go back in. I think I probably would have rejected
God himself if he had knocked on the door. At that moment, this meeting seemed
more important than anything else. But of course, as soon as the meeting was
over, I set out to find Lusyaobo. I was extremely
disturbed by his presence. We went to see him in his
small dormitory on campus. We knocked on his door, sat down,
and talked. We
immediately became very good friends. Luciaobo is literally immersed
in the movement which has been going on for about ten days
and continues to grow. They spend their days and even their nights
in Tiananmen Square, transformed into a vast Agora in the heart
of Beijing, a stone’s throw from the seat of Chinese power. The literary critic
gradually transforms into a political activist, with the feeling of living through a
major historical event for Chinese society. And it is a movement initiated
and led by students. He was one of the greatest advisors
to the student movement of 1989. And Professor Kille is sometimes
severe towards inexperienced young leaders. I think this time, Dajun’s Union,
on wrestling day, it’s a great day. I think Dajun’s Union,
on wrestling day, is a great day. I think Dajun’s Union,
on wrestling day, is a great day. The Dajun’s Union, the role. In
Tiananmen Square, students began a
hunger strike, overshadowing the historic visit
to Beijing by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. The
leadership of the Chinese Communist Party is torn between those who favor a
hardline approach and those who favor negotiation. The decision ultimately rests with the old
leader Deng Xiaoping. He declares martial law
and mobilizes the army. Zhao Zheang, the reformist leader
of the party, knows that tragedy is near. He goes to the square
to plead with the students. Despite the tears of the
party’s secretary general, the hard line won. The regime decided to use
force to evacuate the square. Sensing the imminent danger, Liouciaoubou, along
with three other prominent figures, embarked on a hunger strike to demand
non-violence from both the students and
the army already stationed around the city. Our generation was really keen to show
that it was turning its back on the Chinese Communist Party. The Marxist-
Leninist parties in power, and especially the
Chinese Communist Party, proclaim that power comes from the end
of a gun and advocate violent struggle. Adhering to non-violence was thus
a way of expressing a total break with the party’s ideology. On the evening of June 3, 1989,
the People’s Liberation Army took control of the Chinese capital. The massacre begins
at every point of resistance. We fall under the spell of dances in the streets. We stumble upon dances
near the universities. Tiananmen Square, in the heart of Beijing,
is the army’s ultimate objective. According to orders, she must
be released the following morning. Among students,
two opposing viewpoints are emerging. Some people want calm. The most radical want to stay put
and confront the army. I asked the students on the monument
to calm down and I gathered some classmates to help me. Violence had to be avoided. I asked to negotiate with
the students so that they would abandon the violence. Liou Xioubo wanted to save lives. He tried, taking
responsibility for things. He will walk towards the soldiers
with a white flag while he fires. He’s going to negotiate. That’s him. That’s just how he is. He believes it is his
own responsibility. After negotiating with the army,
we returned to the center of the square to ask
the students to withdraw. And finally, the last scene I
remember, as day was about to break,
was the students gradually evacuating the square through the passage
opened by the soldiers in the southeast. In the early morning of June 4th,
Platz Yannan men was a field of ruins. But for all the witnesses,
an even greater tragedy was avoided thanks to Professor
Liu and his colleagues. What we know as the
Tiananmen Massacre took place all around, in the city streets
and in the neighborhoods where the students had taken refuge. Gunshots continued to echo
in the streets of Beijing for several days. Families are searching for their loved ones. A full assessment to date is
still impossible. A few hundred
or a few thousand deaths. The next day, June 5, 1989,
as tanks patrolled near Tiananmen Square, a lone man
became the symbol of the Chinese people’s resistance to a dictatorship that had
the blood of Beijingers on its hands. The leaders of the Tiananmen movement are being
pursued by the regime, which broadcasts wanted posters on television. Many are fleeing abroad. Liusho Bo has no intention of doing so. I was arrested on June 6,
two days after the massacre. I was cycling home
when, halfway there, I suddenly saw a minibus arrive. Several men emerged from it. They threw my bike over,
blindfolded me and covered my mouth before throwing me into their car. In the re-education camp,
he had plenty of time. His first experience in prison
allowed him to reflect on his past experiences and think about
the future of China. He also used this time
to read some remarkable books. That’s well known. For many
political prisoners, the prison experience actually becomes
a new university. And that was indeed the case for Liouciaobo. But this first imprisonment
also marks a turning point in Liouciaobo’s personal life. While still a student,
he married Tao Li in 1982. The couple had a
six-year-old son in 1989. After six months in prison,
his wife filed for divorce. Liu Xiobo will never see his child again,
who will later go to live with his mother in the United States. After arresting me, the authorities
wanted to make an example of me. On television, during the
national news, they broadcast a long segment about me with the
theme: Liouciaoubo, the mafioso, has been arrested. Everyone outside, my friends,
my family, thought I was going to be shot or at least given a
very heavy prison sentence. I therefore completely understand
my ex-wife’s choice. In this terrible atmosphere following
June 4th, she thought that divorce would be
better for our child and for herself. It’s a reasonable choice
when you have a child to raise. Looking back ,
I realize I wasn’t up to the task. My personal choices have caused them a great deal of
trouble and inconvenience, and I ask their forgiveness again. The
changes in his personality were very visible and many
friends noticed. It bears the imprint of June 4th. We all bear
the scars of June 4th, myself included. He was as if haunted by the souls
of the victims of Tiananmen. So,
for these dead, to try to do them justice,
I thought it was my duty to stay here, in the company of their ghosts. That’s mainly why
I stayed in China. Guiusho-bo was released from prison in 1991. China was transformed around him. The old Deng Xiaoping,
who ordered the shooting of students, retires after relaunching reforms
with his slogan: Get rich. Enter Zhang Zemmine and a generation
of leaders who come from Shanghai and who decided that China
needed to revive its economy. Major projects are springing up everywhere. The country is opening up
to foreign companies. Liusho Bo, for his part, is no longer
the flamboyant intellectual of the 80s. He has lost his position at the university
and is no longer allowed to publish in China. With his friend, the poet-liaoui Wu,
he is looking for a new role among Beijing intellectuals. Our specialty with Luciaobo
was petitions. We loved petitions. We kept writing
political petitions that often related, directly or indirectly, to the
Tiananmen Square massacre. At the time, there were no computers. Everything had to go through fax. So, often not
many of us signed these petitions. And clearly, I never knew
exactly how many. But whether there were many of us or not,
it didn’t stop us from being systematically arrested the next day. Liou Xioubo thus found himself involved
in many of these protests of the 90s. An activism that would earn him several
stays in detention or re-education. In
1995, he was arrested while preparing a new petition
to have the Tiananmen massacre recognized , and was
deprived of his liberty for six months. In 1996, he was sent for three years to a
re-education camp in northern China. It was in the canteen of this camp that he
married Liushia, an intellectual and poet, who shared
with him the same ideal of freedom. While he was serving his sentence,
the Chinese regime made him an offer during
President Clinton’s visit to Beijing. Liushia Abou and his wife can leave
China immediately with the American president. It’s 1998, we come to
see him in prison. The authorities made him understand
that he could leave. Liou Xiabo replied: I will not leave. If you had sentenced me to eight or ten years
in prison, perhaps I would have chosen to give up and leave. But in this case, I only got three years. I’ll be leaving next year,
so I choose to stay. Liu Xiabo was released in 1999. In the early 2000s,
the IOC visited Beijing to award it the 2008 Olympic Games. China was preparing to join the WTO. Large cities are discovering wealth. This race for development reinforces
Liu Xiobo’s convictions. In July 2001,
he created the Chinese branch of the largest international
writers’ association, the PEN Club, which defends
freedom of expression throughout the world. At that time, in terms of
material life, we lived much better than during the time of Mao Zedong
or even during the 80s. But what about social progress,
the system as a whole? A man’s life isn’t just about
his money, is it? Man cannot be content with simply eating
his fill and being warmly dressed. He has needs of a different kind. Some of my classmates or guys
from that time got rich. Today they drive big
cars and live in big houses. It would be difficult, however, to claim that they
lead a better life than mine, at least in terms
of peace of mind. Yuzi. Yuzi was then a trendy young intellectual
, a bit like Liouciaoubo in the 80s. He made the risky choice
to join the Pen Club. Liouciaoubo also hoped to make
the Pen Club a platform to allow us to study and apply
democracy in life. For example, our management committee
had 11 members and met online once a month
to discuss numerous issues. In reality, we had very
lively, very passionate debates on, for example, how to organize a meeting. Because in reality, all these
Chinese intellectuals, so keen on democracy, didn’t even know how to
properly organize a meeting. So, by getting involved in this
writers’ club, he also wanted to showcase this new
literature that emerged from the Tiananmen massacre. He wanted to promote a group
of new writers. He saw them in the lineage
of Solyenitsyn, of those writers from the former Soviet Union
who resisted in the shadows under the yoke of the Communist Party. He thought it was the same thing,
that he always had to fight, to show the reality, which can
only be done through testimony. For him, this literature
of testimonies was fundamental. Liou Xioubo is paying the price for this activism. Government agents, in plain clothes
but not exactly discreet, are now camped outside his house. His phone is tapped,
his internet connection is filtered. In his Beijing apartment,
he now lives under house arrest. I am completely controlled. My phone, my computer, etc. They follow me all the time. And besides, these days it’s not like it was
in the 90s. In the 90s,
when they followed you, they did it by hiding so you wouldn’t see them. If you turned around suddenly,
you would see them trying to hide. But today, they do it openly. They make you understand
that you are being followed. And sometimes,
they’re even right next to me and we start having a little chat. It is August 8, 2008. Beijing feels stronger than ever. The city becomes the center of the world. She has silenced all the protests
and will make her Olympics her crowning achievement. Ladies and gentlemen, please stand
for the Chinese national anthem. Liusho Bo is taking advantage of this Olympic period in his own way. He meets with foreign journalists. He mainly organizes
increasingly regular, discreet meetings in the alleys of Old Beijing. You’ll find university professors there,
and even officials who are more or less close to the party. Liouciaoubo has a new project
based on the model of Charter 77, written by Vasslavavel
in Czechoslovakia. I remember that at the time,
we always met at a restaurant to chat,
at a friend’s restaurant, because we couldn’t talk
by phone or internet. So, each time, we invited friends
to join us at this restaurant. If my memory serves me right, we must have
met like that about ten times. Each time, we invited
different people. For example, one day
it was academics, and then the next time it was writers, and
then lawyers. They all came to discuss
Charter 08 with us. Tang Biao, a lawyer specializing in
sensitive cases at the time, heard about these meetings
and contacted Lioucia obou. I gave him some
legal advice. Initially, the first version he gave me
contained 20 articles. I told him there were too many topics
to cover and that it would be better to focus on political reform,
democratic transition, the rule of law and human rights. It was
a time when many people were working simultaneously
to improve this draft, in the utmost secrecy. After weeks of intense
and secret debates among intellectuals, Charter 08 offers
a synthesis in 19 articles. This ranges from the independence of the judiciary
to freedom of expression or worship. Cia Ye Yang is a professor
of economics at Peking University. He participates in these passionate debates,
but he believes that Liu Xiobo’s text is not radical enough. Personally, I disagreed
with many points, but at that moment, I thought everyone had to
compromise. We agreed on that. Because this version
was very peaceful. The language isn’t very harsh. I mean, there was no
mention of government subversion or anything like that. So, I thought that people
who signed that wouldn’t have to suffer serious consequences. Liouciaoubo’s text
has gathered 303 signatures. Officials, executives from
state-owned enterprises, university leaders. It’s an unexpected success. The charter is to be published on December 10,
2008, International Human Rights Day. But the authorities are becoming
aware of the danger. Liouciaoubo and several other
signatories, including Quartier, were arrested 48 hours before publication. If you write an article on your own,
it doesn’t scare them. But if several hundred people
gather to sign it, then it terrifies them. And then, with Charter 08,
Liouciaobo showed that he was not just a dissident intellectual. He showed that he was also capable
of organizing a movement and bringing together opposition forces,
including from within the system. Arrested on December 8, Liouciaobo was arbitrarily detained for several months
before his trial began in December 2009 before the
Intermediate Court No. 1 in Beijing. A trial held behind closed doors. The dissident’s comrades are being kept
at a distance by the police, who have cordoned off the courthouse. I came here to support CIAObo and to support Charter 08. A dozen embassies,
including those of Germany and the United States, have sent observers who will
also be barred from entering the courtroom. Two days later, on December 25, 2009,
Liu Xiobo was sentenced to 11 years in prison for subverting
state power. The date is not a coincidence. Beijing hopes that on this Christmas Day,
foreign media and diplomats will be less focused on the tribunal. The persecution of peaceful individuals
for expressing their political opinions is incompatible with
international human rights law. Mr. Liu has worked peacefully
to establish democratic processes in China. We will continue to demand
his immediate release from the Chinese government. Alone before his judges, Liusha Bo read a long statement. Freedom of expression is
not a crime, he repeats. And he adds the phrase he had
uttered in Tienne Admen Square: I have no enemies,
his credo for non-violence. Two weeks later,
at the port of Oslot, a letter arrives at the Nobel Peace Prize Committee. It is signed by Vasslavavel. She is calling for the Nobel Prize to be
awarded to imprisoned Chinese dissidents. Intellectuals from all over the world
will join this call. On October 8, 2010, the Norwegian Nobel Committee
announced its choice. I heard, with a foreign accent: I could no longer contain my emotion. As the saying goes: I was laughing and
crying at the same time, but I wasn’t alone. That day, we
all had tears in our eyes. But we were well aware
that our influence, the influence of those who fight
for freedom and democracy in China, was tiny and that in the world,
only a tiny fraction of people knew the name Liushia Obou. Liushia Obou doesn’t know
he has been awarded the Nobel Prize. He languishes in his prison in
northern China. So, foreign media rushed
to Beijing, to the residence of Liushia, his wife. Some of his companions
are trying to force their way through. I think the dictatorship of the One Party
will disappear within ten years. I am very optimistic about that. But this optimism is short-lived. The gate closes. Lucia’s apartment is transformed into a house
arrest within a few hours. The day the Nobel Prize was awarded
was in the afternoon in Beijing. The police came knocking on my door. Two police officers
rushed into my house. And they put a black bag over my head. They tortured me in many ways. It lasted 8 or 9 hours, until pitch
black, and I fell into a coma. They took me to the hospital because I think
that up above, they hadn’t given the order to kill me,
but only to torture me thoroughly. As the Nobel Prize announcement approaches,
Lucia rarely manages to escape from her apartment. One day, we
found her in a cafe in Beijing. She had shown us her
artwork, her poems, and especially the photos she took of her husband. Lucia had always been aware
of the danger to her life with Lucia Obou. You know, for many
years, I only ever had bad things to say. So, how could we have
imagined that? Throughout all these years, Lucia Obou
never thought that he would one day be nominated. So, even less likely that he
could receive this award. Since I’ve known him,
he has supported the candidacy of the mayors of the Tiananmen victims. He always urged all his friends,
Chinese and foreign, to do the same, to the very end. Two days before being arrested,
he was still saying to a friend on the phone: I ask you all to redouble your efforts
so that the Mayors of Tiananmen get the Nobel Prize. Lucia
has been a refugee in Berlin since the summer of 2018 thanks to the efforts
of the German government. She cannot speak publicly
because her brother is being held hostage in Beijing. But she made sure to show her presence
among her classmates by reading a poem. You say: You say, you say,
you say, you say the truth. You say: You say, you say, you say,
you say, you say, you say, you say, you say. You say, you say. You’re in the farms of a state,
your sound is going to get played. 20 years of singing, it’s shaped your life. You are still living in death. You love your wife,
but you’re prouder of the night you spend with her. You do it the way she wants,
you say so, you must continue to write about your writers.
These writers have no voice, no. This video from the
Chinese prison administration shows Lucia visiting Luciaobo. That’s how she
told him he had won the Nobel Prize. That’s how she learned that he
was sick, seriously ill with liver cancer. These propaganda images are intended to make people
believe that Luciaobo received good care. We see him being examined by numerous
doctors, including when his health deteriorates. We see him after the Nobel Prize engaging in physical activities in his prison. What we see above all is a man
alone in permanent isolation. During 2017, the cancer worsened. From her house arrest,
Lucia manages to alert the international community. How long should I play to avoid making the mistake? In June 2017, Luciaoubo was admitted to
Shenzhen Hospital in the terminal phase of his illness. Faced with international pressure,
the regime agrees to allow foreign doctors to come to its bedside. They want to help us. I think
they are confirming his desire to be treated in Europe, but it’s
a charade and it’s too late. It is not transportable,
say their Chinese colleagues. Liuchao Bo died a few days later, on July 13, 2017, after nine years of imprisonment. The international community
preferred to turn a blind eye. Many countries, practically all of them,
are primarily concerned with doing trade with China, with
making money in the Chinese market. The promotion of democracy and human rights has been relegated to the back burner. As for Wu Xiobo,
I call it a sordid murder in front of the world,
because he died in prison in full view of the world and nobody did anything. The Chinese regime organizes
well-orchestrated funerals. Wu Xiobo’s entire family
was summoned by the authorities. Official propaganda attempts
to control the image and legacy of the Nobel Prize. The regime orders that these ashes be
scattered at sea to avoid a place of remembrance effectively named after Lucia Obo. Liushia also told me
that when she was with Liushia Obo in his final days,
in his hospital room, there were several large boxes
filled with all the writings he produced during his nine years
in prison, between 2008 and his death. You have to imagine, there are
several male manuscripts. But after the name Liuziaobo,
the police confiscated all these manuscripts, all these males, and I do not
know their fate. In China, the name Liuziaobo
the Yuzyao Bo is completely censored. Then, internet users started
talking about empty chairs, and the term empty chairs
was in turn censored. There is only one place left
in the country where the name of Yuzyao Bo still resonates with the population:
in Hong Kong, where the anniversary
of the Tiananmen massacre has been solemnly commemorated for 30 years. Now, the figure of Yuzyao Bo is everywhere
in this major event in the lives of Hong Kongers. But Hong Kong is another China. The former British colony
currently enjoys a special status, with access to a
free internet and foreign media. But within the country,
censorship is total. In 2008, during our last meeting, Liouciableau sensed
the risks to come. In a few weeks, he would
disappear, imprisoned until his death. He left us his last
words to understand his freedom. I think I made the right choices. Of course the consequences
are important to me. But that’s how it is anyway
if you live in China. You have to pay a price. If you don’t choose my
lifestyle, a life that most people consider too hard and too
risky, then you won’t pay the price I pay. But if you think about it, you’ll still have to
pay a certain price. For example, you will be forced to lie. You will have to follow the dominant ideology
to obtain and keep a good income, a good job. It was therefore impossible to
worry about the deaths of June 4th. It is impossible to express the slightest
criticism of the government. In fact, it’s impossible to express
any genuine opinion. And all this for a
comfortable material life. So
I prefer to pay this high price of danger rather than become someone who lives a
lie, rather than become someone who denies their own conscience.