Shi Tao, Honorary Member of Sydney PEN

Journalist, poet and Independent Chinese PEN member Shi Tao has been made an honorary member of Sydney PEN.

Shi Tao was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment for "revealing state secrets abroad". In April 2004, Shi Tao sent notes he took of a document read out at an editorial meeting of the Dangdai Shangbao (Contemporary Commerce News) to an overseas website using a Yahoo! email account. According to court documents, Yahoo! (Hong Kong) Holdings Ltd provided the Chinese authorities with Shi Tao's identity. Read our letter to Yahoo!. Read our earlier letter to Hu Jintao. (Neither has been answered.)

The following is a poem written by Shi Tao and translated by Chip Rolley:

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June

My whole life

Will never get past “June”
June, when my heart died
When my poetry died
When my lover
Died in romance's pool of blood

June, the scorching sun burns open my skin
Revealing the true nature of my wound
June, the fish swims out of the blood-red sea
Toward another place to hibernate
June, the earth shifts, the rivers fall silent
Piled up letters unable to be delivered to the dead

9 June 2004

Sydney PEN members are encouraged to write a letter protesting Shi Tao's imprisonment. Here is the information you need:

Sydney PEN is alarmed at the sentencing of journalist, poet and Independent Chinese PEN member, Shi Tao, to ten years' imprisonment for "revealing state secrets" and calls for his immediate release. Shi Tao was sentenced on 30 April 2005. According to Xinhua, the government run news agency, he had been found guilty of posting on-line his notes regarding a government document that was read out at an editorial meeting of Dangdai Shangbao (Contemporary Commerce News) in April 2004.

Shi Tao was arrested by police while he was at his home in Taiyuan, northwest China, on 24 November 2004. He has written a number of articles, including political commentaries for online forums such as the overseas Chinese web-site Minzhu Luntan (Democracy Forum). He has also published several books of poetry.

Sydney PEN believes that the detention of Shi Tao is an infraction of his right to free expression and calls on the Chinese authorities to release him.

Please send appeals:

-Expressing alarm at Shi Tao's sentence and urging the Chinese authorities to release him;
-Referring to our concerns about a seemingly intractable intolerance of dissent and a corresponding pattern of harassment and arrests of writers;
-Urging the Chinese authorities to adhere to the principle of free expression as guaranteed under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Appeals to:
His Excellency Hu Jintao
President of the People's Republic of China
State Council
Beijing 100032
The People's Republic of China

His Excellency Zhang Fusen
Minister of Justice
10 Chaoyangmen Nandajie
Chaoyangqu
Beijing 100020
The People's Republic of China

Her Excellency Fu Ying
Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China
15 Coronation Drive Yarralumla, ACT 2600
Canberra Australia
Email: chinaemb_au@mfa.gov.cn
Fax: (02) 6273-9615