- BEIJING - In a country dominated
by stodgy autocrats, Liu Di committed the gravest crime of all: She laughed
at the authorities.
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- The introverted 23-year-old university student was a
cyber-satirist who wrote articles under the nickname Stainless Steel Mouse.
Her Web site, poking fun at China's Communist rulers, was famed for its
anarchic wit and mocking humour.
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- She urged readers to preach Marxism -- like "real
Communists." In another article, she called on people to try an experiment:
Spend a day telling the truth. "On this day, let us be free humans,"
she said. She even predicted the cause of her own future demise: "laughing
to death."
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- The Chinese police were not amused. Last Nov. 7, Liu
Di was arrested and thrown into jail, where she has been held incommunicado
ever since.
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- In the year since her arrest, the soft-spoken satirist
has emerged as an unlikely hero in the growing debate over freedom of expression
and the rule of law in China. Her name has become a rallying cry for hundreds
of supporters who have signed on-line petitions to protest against her
arrest. And her imprisonment has been taken up by Human Rights Watch, Amnesty
International and Reporters Without Borders.
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- Liu Di is merely the most prominent Internet dissident
to be detained in the past year, as authorities wage a relentless campaign
to suppress free expression on the Web. At least 17 cyber-dissidents are
currently in jail in China for their writings on the Internet, human-rights
groups say.
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- Yet no matter how much Beijing struggles to put a lid
on the controversy over her arrest, the Stainless Steel Mouse has remained
a cause cÈlËbre in China. On the Internet, her sympathizers
express their solidarity by adopting the words "stainless steel"
as part of their names.
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- At least two people who campaigned for her freedom have
been arrested by the Chinese authorities. Yet the arrests have failed to
crush the protests.
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- One of Liu Di's supporters, an economic consultant named
Dean Peng, has been boldly campaigning to call attention to the case. Thursday,
he called together a group of foreign correspondents in Beijing to mark
the anniversary of her arrest and to describe his persistent efforts over
the past five months to seek a legal explanation for her imprisonment.
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- Under Chinese law, Liu Di can be detained for a maximum
of two months without criminal charges. Extensions of a further three months
can be allowed if prosecutors give approval. But when Mr. Dean tried to
ask the police for an explanation of why she has been jailed for longer
than the permissible period, he said they summoned him to a police station
and demanded to know his motives. He said the police hinted that they could
charge him with a criminal offence because of his inquiries.
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- Since then, he has renewed his request for a legal explanation
every one or two weeks, but has never received a reply. "There are
only two ways of ending this," he said. "Either I get my answer.
Or I die."
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- He emphasized that he has no personal connection to Liu
Di or her family, but is simply acting as an ordinary Chinese citizen who
wants the police to follow the law. "I just see this case as completely
unjust," he said. "As an intellectual, I have an obligation to
fight against things that I consider to be morally evil. A 23-year-old
woman has spent one of her 23 years in jail. I am seriously worried that
she's at the edge of mental breakdown by now."
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- He acknowledged that the police are increasingly aware
of the importance of the rule of law, and they are more tolerant of people
who speak out. "There is much bigger room to do it today." Indeed,
it seems that the authorities are ambivalent about Liu Di. Prosecutors
have reportedly sent the case back to the police for further investigation
because there was insufficient evidence to prosecute her.
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