{"id":1240,"date":"2013-06-20T12:04:48","date_gmt":"2013-06-20T16:04:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/liuxiaphotos\/?p=1240"},"modified":"2013-07-04T11:45:27","modified_gmt":"2013-07-04T15:45:27","slug":"liu-xia-exhibition-update-6","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/liuxiaphotos\/2013\/06\/20\/liu-xia-exhibition-update-6\/","title":{"rendered":"Liu Xia Exhibition \u2014 Update 6"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Style<\/a>

Style Weekly, Richmond, VA, 2-19-13, cover.<\/p><\/div>\n

The international tour of \u201cThe Silent Strength of Liu Xia,\u201d the exhibition of 26 photographs by the dissident Chinese photographer, artist, and poet, concluded \u2015 at least until further notice \u2015 with the April 28, 2013 closing of its run\u00a0at the\u00a0Lora Robins Gallery of the University of Richmond Museums<\/a>\u00a0in Richmond, VA. (Click here<\/a>\u00a0for details of that exhibition.)\u00a0Co-curator A. D. Coleman, who managed the exhibition’s itinerary from early 2012 through the Richmond showing, has indicated that he would not have an involvement in any future arrangements for the exhibition.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

\"Press<\/a>

Press release, A. D. Coleman lecture, University of the Arts, 4-3-13.<\/p><\/div>\n

Subsequently, on April 3, 2013, Coleman lectured on the subject of Liu Xia and this exhibition at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, PA. Attended primarily by faculty and students, his illustrated presentation, part of the UArts\u00a0Paradigm Lecture Series<\/a>, took place in the university’s\u00a0Connelly Auditorium.<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

The\u00a0arrest\u00a0of\u00a0Liu Xia\u2019s younger brother, Liu Hui,\u00a0in Beijing in late January of this year was followed in March by an indictment on charges of financial fraud. After a summary trial, Liu Hui\u00a0was found guilty by a panel of three judges and, on June 9, given an unusually harsh sentence of 11 years in prison \u2015 not coincidentally, the same length of time that Liu Xia’s husband, Nobel Peace Prize recipient Liu Xiaobo, currently serves. (See “China Sentences Brother-in-Law of Nobel Laureate to 11 Years on Fraud Charges”<\/a> by Edward Wong, New York Times,<\/em>\u00a0June 9, 2013.)<\/p>\n

\"PEN<\/a>

PEN America poster for Liu Xia campaign, “She’s Not Free,” May 2013.<\/p><\/div>\n

At the conclusion of the trial, Liu Xia, allowed to attend the trial whose outcome was preordained, stated that\u00a0“This is completely an illegal verdict,” adding,\u00a0“I am not free. If they tell you I\u2019m free, tell them I\u2019m not free.”<\/p>\n

Knowledgeable observers consider this\u00a0verdict to constitute\u00a0official retribution for two widely publicized breaches<\/a> in December 2012 of the extralegal police cordon that keeps Liu Xia confined to her Beijing apartment and restricts her contact with the outside world. Punishment of family members (including even the dead) for the real or perceived misdeeds of an individual constitutes a time-honored tradition<\/a> among China’s ruling class, stretching back millennia.<\/p>\n

\"Liu<\/a>

Liu Xia, “Open Letter to Xi Jinping,” June 14, 2013.<\/p><\/div>\n

In response,\u00a0Liu Xia wrote and published an open letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping, protesting both her house arrest since October 2010 and her brother’s jail sentence.\u00a0Liu Xia’s hand-written letter was posted in photos to Twitter by Shang Baojun, one of the attorneys who represent Liu Hui,\u00a0on June 14. (Click here for the Associated Press report,\u00a0“Jailed Nobel’s wife pens open letter to China’s Xi,”<\/a> as published in the Tehran Times<\/em> on\u00a0June 14, 2013.) The English\u00a0translation by Friends of Liu Xiaobo of her handwritten missive, as published at the website of PEN America<\/a>, reads as follows:<\/p>\n

President Xi Jinping:<\/em><\/p>\n

I am Liu Xia, a citizen of the People\u2019s Republic of China. I have been under house arrest and have lost all my personal freedoms since October 2010. No one has told me any reasons for detaining me. I have thought about it over and over. Perhaps in this country it\u2019s a “crime” for me to be Liu Xiaobo\u2019s wife.<\/em><\/p>\n

I think the prison sentence of my brother Liu Hui, which was handed down on June 9, 2013, is totally unjust. I doubt whether the judicial authorities and even the whole public power system were really administering their rights properly.<\/em><\/p>\n

Under the current rule of law, we should see justice in state power, instead of ruthless crackdowns with violence; any events that erase individual rights will all cause tragedy, thus casting a dark shadow over the aura of the state power’s legitimacy.<\/em><\/p>\n

Justice in criminal cases will only be manifested in actual cases. I cannot imagine justice, which is what we\u2019re hoping for, would be realized through disrespecting and even disregarding the rights of the accused.<\/em><\/p>\n

Mr. Chairman, the China Dream that you mentioned will have to be realized through every citizen. I hope the China Dream won\u2019t turn us individuals into the \u201cChina Nightmares.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Today is the traditional Chinese Duanwu Festival (Dragon Boat Festival). Can you ever imagine how our family is feeling during the celebrations?<\/em><\/p>\n

Citizen Liu Xia<\/em>
\n 2013.6.12<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The arrest of Liu Xia\u2019s younger brother, Liu Hui, in Beijing in late January of this year was followed in March by an indictment on charges of financial fraud. After a summary trial, Liu Hui was found guilty by a panel of three judges and, on June 9, given an unusually harsh sentence of 11 years in prison \u2015 not coincidentally, the same length of time that Liu Xia’s husband, Nobel Peace Prize recipient Liu Xiaobo, currently serves. Knowledgeable observers consider this verdict to constitute official retribution. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,12],"tags":[20,7,19,9],"class_list":["post-1240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-exhibition-news","category-liu-xia-news","tag-liu-hui","tag-liu-xia","tag-liu-xiaobo","tag-the-silent-strength-of-liu-xia","odd"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/liuxiaphotos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/liuxiaphotos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/liuxiaphotos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/liuxiaphotos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/liuxiaphotos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/liuxiaphotos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1240\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/liuxiaphotos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/liuxiaphotos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nearbycafe.com\/artandphoto\/liuxiaphotos\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}