Dui Hua Completes Active Round of Spring, Summer Trips
In recent months, Executive Director John Kamm undertook trips to Europe, Asia, and the East Coast of the United States. In late April, Kamm first traveled to Hong Kong and Beijing to prepare for the arrival of the US juvenile justice delegation to China (see cover story). In May, Kamm joined the delegation for program activities in Beijing, where he also met with representatives from Chinese ministries and foreign embassies.
Upon his return from Asia, Kamm headed to Europe in late May for a mission that had been rescheduled after the eruption of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano. Kamm started out in Geneva, meeting with a representative of the Chinese Mission to the United Nations, the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights, the US ambassador, and the director of the International Institute on the Rights of the Child. In Berne, he met with the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs and then, in Zurich, with monks at the Tibetan monastery in Rikon. He went on to Paris, Oslo, Stockholm, and Copenhagen, conducting talks with representatives of foreign ministries in each country. Kamm also consulted with prominent human rights institutions in Europe, including the International Committee of the Red Cross, Norwegian Nobel Institute, Norwegian Centre for Human Rights, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Olof Palme Center, and the Danish Centre for Human Rights.
Kamm returned from Europe in late June before departing in early July for Washington and New York. In the US capital, he held meetings with officials, including representatives of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, State Department, National Security Council, and the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. Kamm also met with a representative of the Chinese Embassy. In New York, Kamm saw Ambassador Li Baodong, China’s permanent representative to the United Nations.
Research Manager Rosenzweig Presents on Liu Xiaobo Case at Hong Kong Conference
On June 5, Senior Research Manager Joshua Rosenzweig made a presentation at a conference at the University of Hong Kong. Entitled “Charter 08 and the Challenges of Constitutional Development,” the program focused on the case of Liu Xiaobo, convicted of “inciting subversion” and sentenced to 11 years in prison last December. Rosenzweig’s presentation used Liu’s case to examine the crime of inciting subversion and arguments that Chinese lawyers make to defend clients charged with the crime. In preparing his remarks, featured later in the South China Morning Post, Rosenzweig drew upon research materials collected by Dui Hua on more than 70 cases of inciting subversion since 1997.
The conference, co-sponsored by Hong Kong University’s Center for Chinese Law and the French Center for Research on Contemporary China, brought together an international group of scholars and researchers working in areas of law, political science, and human rights.
Advocacy Work Boosts Media Coverage, Website Traffic
Dui Hua’s recent advocacy has been covered widely in both US and foreign media. In particular, a press statement in early July on the Xue Feng case led to more than two dozen news pieces by, among other media, The New York Times, The Christian Science Monitor, Radio Australia, the South China Morning Post, The Irish Times, Aftenposten (Norway), and The Straits Times (Singapore). Around that period, Dui Hua’s website saw the year’s high in weekly readership, continuing an overall increase in site traffic for 2010.
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