Opening Ceremony, 61th World Newspaper Congress and 15th World Editors Forum
Göteborg, Sweden, 2 June 2008

Your Majesty,
Your Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,

Before I begin the presentation of the 2008 Golden Pen of Freedom, I’d like to take care of some long neglected business. We have with us today the 1995 winner of the Golden Pen, Gao Yu. We’ve never had the opportunity to properly honour her since she was serving a prison sentence in China when she won the award thirteen years ago. Gao Yu has been fighting for press freedom for many years. She’s served two lengthy prison senteces for her work. She’s an inspiration to us all. So I’d like to ask Gao Yu to stand - we’re extremely please to hae you with us today and we’d like to ackknowledge the work you’ve done in the cause of press freedom.

A year ago, at the opening ceremony of the Congress and the Forum in Cape Town, the World Association of Newspapers presented the Golden Pen of Freedom award to Chinese journalist Shi Tao.
Today, we honour another courageous Chinese journalist, Li Changqing, who was released from prison in February after serving three years. His crime was to do his job.

This is the first time since W-A-N created this award in 1961 that it has gone in consecutive years to journalists from the same country.
The award was made on the individual merits of Mr Li’s case. He went to jail for exposing a serious outbreak of a dangerous disease before the authorities had told the public about it. The Golden Pen of Freedom recognises Mr Li’s brave conduct in revealing significant facts in the public interest.

But Mr Li’s case also belongs in a context. China has the dubious distinction of being the world’s biggest jailer of journalists. Despite the promises it made in its successful Olympic bid to improve conditions for journalists, China has continued its repressive policies, cynically believing that neither the Olympic movement nor the international community expects them to honour their promises of reform.

In fact, China is pursuing its crackdown on freedom of expression even now, a few weeks before the Olympic Games. Just last month, two more journalists were jailed - this time for reporting that a public official had beaten an employee for arriving late for work. More than 30 journalists and 50 cyber-dissidents are now in Chinese jails - something to remember as you watch the Beijing Olympics later this summer. The World Association of Newspapers and the World Editors Forum once again call for their immediate release.

Today’s honoree, Li Changqing, uncovered and disclosed an outbreak of dengue fever before the health officials in his home town alerted the public. In most countries, he would be celebrated and honoured for this work. In China, disclosing such facts is an imprisonable offence.

Think about this situation for a moment. Imagine an outbreak of disease in your child’s school, in your workplace, or in your city parks. The authorities, for whatever reason, don’t tell you about it as soon as they know.

You would rightly consider this a failure of government. But this is what happens in China. In 2003, the Chinese government delayed reporting the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome to the World Health Organisation and restricted media coverage to preserve public confidence. China apologised for its slowness in dealing with SARS. But the case uncovered by Mr Li a year later shows that authorities haven’t learned from their mistakes. With no independent press, there is no effective oversight to uncover wrongdoing, corruption or simple incompetence.

And, in those rare cases where journalists take on this role, they face enormous risks - loss of job, isolation, prison or worse. Which makes it all the more important for those of us in the international community to pay attention to their plight, to let them know that we care about them, and about what is being done to them. Some people say that engagement is a better course, and that it is neither effective nor worthwhile to confront such a rich and powerful country as China. These are false alternatives.

The World Association of Newspapers also believes in engagement - but it is our Chinese counterparts who have shown us they aren’t really interested in engagement at all.
Those of you who have attended previous Congresses know that Chinese publishers and their representatives have been warmly welcomed here. They’ve had a place on the stage and the opportunity to address the world’s publishers and editors. Delegations from Chinese newspapers have visited the W-A-N offices, where they have been briefed extensively on developments in newspapers throughout the world. There was a frank exchange of views between Chinese officials and the publisher of the New York Times at a World Editors Forum breakfast in Seoul a few years ago.

And the results of this engagement? The China Newspaper Association continues to act against press freedom in China. It isn’t interested in discussions of any kind on that particular subject: it calls men like Shi Tao and Li Chongqing criminals. We know that the China Newspaper Association, which takes its instructions from the Communist Party, has ordered a boycott of our events here in Göteborg by Chinese media representatives.

We believe both in engagement and in constructive commentary. If China is to take its rightful place in the community of nations, it must be mature enough to accept criticism and continue discussions despite disagreement. We hope the authorities will one day recognise that it is in the country’s best interest to allow freedom of the press.

Mr Li’s case shows us why. A reporter and deputy news director of the Fuzhou Daily in Fujian Province, Mr Li was sentenced to three years in prison in January 2006 for - and I quote - fabricating and spreading false information - unquote - after being detained without charges for nearly a year.

Due to censorship and restrictions imposed by the Communist Party Propaganda Department on sensitive social issues, no reports of the dengue fever outbreak in Fuzhou had been reported in the Chinese press. Nor had health officials announced the outbreak. The charges against Mr Li, who was released in February, stem from a report on the outbreak that was posted on Boxun News Network, a Chinese-language website based in the United States.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr Li was unable to secure a passport and cannot be with us today to accept his award. His wife was also prevented by the authorities from travelling here: she was briefly detained and questioned at Beijing airport by police who confiscated her passport.

I would therefore like to call another courageous and persecuted Chinese writer, Li Jianhong, who has been kidnapped, harassed, arrested and forced to leave China, to accept the 2008 Golden Pen of Freedom on behalf of Chinese journalist Li Changqing.