Writers worldwide have translated and recorded the poem June by imprisoned journalist and poet Shi Tao into, at last count, more than 90 languages. The poem is a moving meditation on the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre, written on June 9, 2004, to coincide with the event’s 15th anniversary.

It has moved via website, from PEN centre to centre, along a route similar to the Olympic torch itinerary, adding new translations as it goes. So far the poem has been to 70 locations throughout Europe, the Americas, Africa and the Middle East, and it will continue its journey up to the opening of the Olympics in August. The Australian leg will include translations into Aboriginal and other languages that reflect our extraordinary linguistic diversity.

Shi Tao’s imprisonment was the result of an incident in April 2004. Using a Yahoo account, he emailed an overseas website his notes on a document issued by the Chinese Communist Party, with instructions to the media in regard to the coming anniversary of the crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests.

The media had been directed to keep an eye on any dissident activity in accordance with party policy, and not to allow the expression of critical opinions. To its shame, Yahoo provided the Chinese authorities with Shi Tao’s identity, and he was arrested in November 2004. He is serving a 10-year prison sentence for “revealing state secrets abroad”.

Shi Tao’s sentence reflects a disturbing trend. International PEN is monitoring the cases of 38 writers and journalists currently imprisoned in China. They include Han Chinese, Uyghurs and Tibetans, and activists such as independent publisher Yang Maodong, who was sentenced to five years in prison on November 14, 2007, for exposing government corruption in Shenyang.

According to International PEN, he has been repeatedly tortured in detention, a charge that can be extended to the treatment of other imprisoned activists and writers.

An indication that the Chinese authorities are continuing their crackdown on free expression is the 3½ year jail sentence given to dissident Hu Jia on April 8, on the charge of “inciting subversion of state power”.

Hu Jia has been critical of the Government on a range of social issues. In 2000, he was one of the founders of AIDS support group Loving Source, which has helped people suffering from the illness, and he has been critical of the Government’s treatment of AIDS victims. In more recent times he has campaigned in support of human rights, and against arbitrary arrest and detention. He supported peasant leaders in their recent campaign for land rights on behalf of farmers whose property has been confiscated for development.

While testifying to a European parliamentary hearing on human rights in Brussels, in November 2007, Hu Jia said: “It is ironic that one of the people in charge of organising the Olympic Games is the head of the Bureau of Public Security, which is responsible for human rights violations.”

Exposing human rights abuses in China before the Olympics poses a dilemma. In 1984-85 I worked as a teacher of English at an agricultural college in south-west China. I was treated with great warmth, generosity and openness by my students, and by the rural community in which I worked. I was impressed by the courage and spirit with which they had endured the challenges of the recent past, and by their humour and goodwill.

It was the beginning of a new era in which China was emerging from the collective trauma and isolationism of the Cultural Revolution, and moving towards closer ties with the international community.

Some friendships I formed at that time have endured and I am acutely aware of my friends’ sensitivities, their pride in the Olympics, and their desire to show the world that China can be a warm and generous host. They see the Games as an opportunity to show the world that China is now a modernised and sophisticated nation in tune with the aspirations of a global community.

This sentiment is shared even among some of those who were previously involved in the Tiananmen Square protests.

However, when it comes to the harassment, torture, imprisonment and cruel treatment of courageous activists such as Hu Jia and Yang Maodong, there is no alternative but to publicise their suffering and campaign for their release.

At the heart of initiatives such as the PEN poem relay is the basic understanding that when state authorities can get away with human rights abuses and the exercise of arbitrary power unhindered, then these abuses will increase, and the repressive net cast by the state will only widen.

Arnold Zable is president of the Melbourne Centre of International PEN. His new novel Sea of Many Returns will be published in June. The relay website is http://www.penpoemrelay.org