Press release
Chinese Human Rights Defenders
April 8, 2008

CHRD Launches the "Free Olympic Prisoners" Campaign

Today, with the Olympics only four months away, CHRD launches the "Free Olympic Prisoners" Campaign to press for the release of three Chinese human rights defenders— Ye Guozhu (叶国柱), Yang Chunlin (杨春林) and Hu Jia (胡佳)— recently imprisoned for speaking out against human rights violations related to the Olympics.

CHRD urges heads of democratic states, the International Olympics Committee (IOC), the EU and UN human rights bodies, and citizens around the world to speak up against the imprisonment of the three Chinese for criticizing Olympics-related human rights violations by the Chinese government.

Unless Chinese authorities free the three "Olympic Prisoners" and other prisoners of conscience in China, and lifted censorship and police surveillance of human rights activists and dissidents in the next four months, leaders of democratic nations including US President Bush, UK Prime Minister Brown and French President Sarkozy must boycott the Olympics opening ceremony on August 8.

"These leaders would be morally complicit and betray the very principles they claim to uphold if images of them standing side-by-side with Chinese leaders watching fireworks and pageantry are broadcast across the world while these three human rights defenders languish in prison for speaking up against official abuses committed in preparation for the Olympics," said Renee Xia, International Director of CHRD.  

CHRD urges those concerned about the imprisonment and the reported degrading treatment and torture of these "Olympic prisoners," to ask their government representatives and the IOC to express concern when they meet with Chinese leaders, as well as to write to the relevant Chinese authorities to demand the prisoners' release and send messages of support to the prisoners and their families.