Zhong Guo
The Guardian News Paper Talks about the man that information provided by yahoo! got jailed for ten years.
This year, the
Committee to Protect Journalists will present one of its International
Press Freedom Awards to Shi Tao, a Chinese journalist and poet
currently serving a 10-year prison sentence for "leaking state secrets
abroad". Richard Lea looks at his work, and the charges that were
brought against him
"I wouldn’t say Shi
Tao is particularly pioneering in his poetry," says one of his
translators at SOAS, Heather Inwood, "although it has been said that he
is one of very few contemporary poets who really ‘worries about the
country and its people’ in his writings. His involvement in
pro-democracy and freedom of speech movements seems to be reflected in
his poetry", she says. Many of his poems are "full of anger, death,
blackness, blood and violence.""I
imagine his essays and reportage on overseas pro-democracy websites may
have affected the development of any reputation on the mainland," says
Rolley. "I suspect politics would have got in the way."Now,
however, Shi may never find out if he was destined for poetic
greatness. His release of the CCP memo has now brought both his careers
to a halt. He is not allowed to write anything while in prison, except
for letters to his family. Muffled Voices
Rhyme and reason: Richard Lea reports from last night’s ‘Poet in the City’ event at Amnesty International which features poems by Shi Tao
Yang Lian’s outrage seemed much closer to the surface as he brought up
the case of Chinese journalist and poet Shi Tao, imprisoned in Chishan
Prison, Yuanjiang City for distributing a Chinese Communist Party memo
to websites based outside China
"When people speak of China there are two different pictures in mind,"
he said. "China presents one face to the world and another to its own
people. Shi Tao is a very important symbol of this split. Western
companies rush to China and shake that blood hand and shut their
mouths."…."If I have a message for Shi Tao," siad Jack Mapanje, "it is this.
Decide to survive, because your survival is a form of embarrassment to
both western governments and the Chinese government. You need to
constantly remind the Chinese government that you are there. Because
giving up means that the struggle is giving up, but surviving means
that the struggle carries on." Rhyme and reason
Poems: Pain and Heretical Theories by Shi Tao
Yan Sham-Shackleton Online 