‘Love Is a Serious Crime, a Life Sentence’ – Liu Xia Audio on May 25, 2018

A continued call on behalf of Liu Xia (China Change Exclusive)

Liao Yiwu, Chinese writer in exile, June 1, 2018

Dear friends, I am hereby once again publicizing a portion of a conversation with Liu Xia (劉霞), this time on May 25, 2018. The recording runs 21 minutes; I have excerpted the final 8 minutes. Liu Xia said: “Loving Liu Xiaobo is a crime, for which I’ve received a life sentence.”

This is enough to make one burn with rage. Since when did love become a crime? When Xi Jinping’s father was labeled an anti-CCP element and jailed by Mao Zedong during the Cultural Revolution, his mother didn’t abandon him, and nor did she get locked up for years like Liu Xia has.

In January 2014, by which point Liu Xia had been cut off from the world for more than three years, I was finally able to reach her from Germany by telephone at her home in Beijing. As soon as I spoke her name, she began to sob, and she went on sobbing for 20 minutes. I didn’t know what to say. She hung up. I called back, it was the same — she’d almost become speechless.

In the blink of an eye more years have elapsed — the torment of it impossible to put in a few words. In the end, it came to this: Xiaobo was murdered under the cover of ‘bail on medical grounds.’ The couple were able to see each other in the prison-like hospital ward for less than a month. Every day, there were people in and out the ward, over 100 times in all, ‘rescuing’ Xiaobo while sealing him off from the outside world.

Xiaobo desperately wanted Liu Xia to leave China, and even dreamt of accompanying her and Liu Hui, Liu Xia’s brother, to Germany in the little time left in his life. After he died, the Chinese police said to Liu Xia many times that as long as she cooperated with them, they’d let her leave the country to seek treatment.

In April 2917, I went through a contact — one of the most famous poets and singers of the Berlin Wall era, Wolf Biermann, as well as his wife — to reach out to Chancellor Angela Merkel with a letter asking for help. I attached a handwritten note by Liu Xia, titled ‘Application for Exiting China Submitted to Relevant Departments’ (dated April 9, 2017). My letter was met with a quick response, and a communication channel with the Chancellor was established. By now, the German and Chinese governments have been engaged in private negotiations for well over a year already. In early April this year, in response to numerous apparently optimistic signals, Liu Xia packed, and packed again, getting ready to travel — but her dreams dimmed and went dark. The Chinese official who had made promises to her had disappeared, and in despair Liu Xia declared that she would “use death to defy.”

I told her not to do anything rash, and sensing that things were reaching a crisis point, I published for the first time an audio recording of part of our conversation, with the headline “‘Dona, Dona,’ Give Freedom to Liu Xia.” The purpose was to turn a low-key negotiation into a loud call for the attention of the international community.

On the eve of May 24, before Merkel went to China for visit, I received a call from German’s public broadcaster ZDF, where I made the earnest request that Chancellor Merkel bring Liu Xia out of China with her. I said that if this is impossible, she could at the very least express the wish to pay a visit to an ill Liu Xia, or have a medical expert attend to her. For Liu Xia, trapped in her home-prison, this may have been her best opportunity to be freed.

And yet none of this came to pass! Though, Merkel did meet with Li Wenzu, the wife of detained rights lawyer Wang Quanzhang, and other family members of 709 victims in the German embassy in Beijing, and emphasized that she wished to personally meet with Liu Xia. When Merkel and Chinese prime minister Li Keqiang held a joint press conference, Li announced that China respects humanitarian requests and was willing to engage in dialogue with Germany on ‘individual human rights cases’ — this was the highest official statement on the matter.

As for Liu Xia, several days before Merkel’s visit, police entered her apartment and commanded her to leave the city on ‘travel.’ Liu Xia staunchly refused, and the police didn’t force it. Instead, they tried to persuade her, again and again, and said that soon there would be someone coming to speak with her about leaving the country.

I’ve lost count of how many times this promise has been made. The police said that in July, after the first anniversary of Xiaobo’s death, she’d absolutely be allowed to leave China. I made clear my doubts, and advised Liu Xia to consider countermeasures beforehand in case they don’t let her go in July. Upon these words of mine, Liu Xia was terrified and sunk into a bout of despair.

The following is an excerpt of our telephone conversation on May 25, the last day of Merkel’s visit to China:

Liao Yiwu: When you kept saying ‘death death death’ last time, I felt like I’d been hit with a jolt of electricity. Liu Xia: When I’m dead, I won’t be a bother to anyone. LYW: How can you say that? How can you die like that? This is not an option. LX: So just keep me company, staying with me quietly. When you all tell me to do this and do that, I won’t take anyone’s calls anymore… You imagine these things are easy to do – if I can live like a free person, why do I even want to leave China? Xiaobo wanted me to go abroad to be free….because he had seen that police followed me everywhere and the room was fitted out with all sorts of surveillance equipment and nothing is easy for me to do. I’ve got a lot of friends here too….sometimes I’m so squeezed that I’m left with no choice… LYW: Yes, you told me to record it last time — I felt you were falling apart. At that time, I… LX: It’s no problem. But don’t ask me, as you did later, to do this or to do that… LYW: OK, OK, OK. Just wait for July and see what they say. LX: Right. LYW: I feel that you’ll be able to get out eventually… but, it’s such a fucking torment…

More sobbing. Endless sobbing. I could neither stop her nor comfort her. So I started playing the song ‘Too Much Love’ by Israeli singer Motty Steinmetz. I had played it for her many times; she liked it a lot. Steinmetz had learned traditional Jewish hymns from his grandfather since childhood, and his lyrics are drawn from the Hebrew Bible.

As the song played, Liu Xia wailed: “They’re going to keep me here to serve out Xiaobo’s sentence.”

I was flabbergasted. Last year when she finally returned home after Xiaobo’s death, she cast her gaze around a room full of books. The old ones he’d read; the new he’d never get to. She felt suffocated and reached out for her medication when she collapsed onto the floor. When she came to a few hours later, she found herself bruised all over.

As I considered all this, words from Jeremiah sprung from the depths of my mind:

“Thus saith the LORD;

I remember thee,

the kindness of thy youth,

the love of thine espousals,

when thou wentest after me in the wilderness,

in a land that was not sown.”

This seemed like the voice of Xiaobo from Heaven. Liu Xia continued: “I want to see just how much more cruel they can get and how much more shameless they’ll become; I want to see how much more depraved this world is.”

I responded: “All you have ever done is love, for all you’ve gone through.…”

She said: “They should add a line to the constitution: ‘Loving Liu Xiaobo is a serious crime, a life sentence.’”

I was too struck by these words of hers to continue. Liu Xia said: “I’m going to go take my medication.”

I bid her goodbye: “Be patient. Let’s wait until July.”

She ‘hmmmed’ and hung up. I sat still at my desk for a long while. The 29th anniversary of the Tiananmen massacre is approaching, and I decided to send out this message to the world, continuing to call for her to be freed.

Dear friends, whether you’re a foreigner or Chinese; whether you’re a political leader, a parliamentarian, a diplomat, or a regular citizen — friends of Xiaobo who are dissidents, poets, authors, academics, artists, sinologists, journalists, actors, lawyers, and public intellectuals — if you’re in Beijing, please take a moment of your time to go and visit Liu Xia. If you’re concerned to go by yourself, bring a few like-minded friends along. If they don’t let you see her, please read a poem outside her apartment building, or call out to her. If her minders stop you, give them a flier with her poem on it.

If you’re not in Beijing, or not willing to do the above, at least forward around the recording. Have more people — including U.S. President Donald Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron, British Prime Minister Theresa May, and the Nobel Committee in Norway — understand what the wife of 2010 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Liu Xiaobo has been going through for all these years.

June 1, 2018

Related:

China Change Exclusive: Liu Xia Cries Out for Help in a Phone Call With Liao Yiwu on April 8, 2018, Liao Yiwu, May 2, 2018.

愛就是重罪

— 繼續爲劉霞呼籲

流亡作家 廖亦武

親愛的朋友，這裡我再次公開與劉霞在2018年5月25日上午的一段談話錄音，長度爲21分鐘，我截取了最後的8分多鐘。劉霞說：“愛劉曉波就是重罪，就是無期徒刑。”令人五內俱焚。愛就是重罪嗎？當習近平的父親文革中被毛澤東以“反黨罪”投入監獄，他的母親并沒離開，他的母親也沒像劉霞這樣被囚禁多年。

2014年1月，劉霞與世隔絕三年餘，終於在北京家中接到我從德國打過去的電話。我叫了聲劉霞，她就哽咽起來，持續了20多分鐘，我不知該說什麽，最後她挂掉電話。我再撥過去，還是這樣，她幾乎失語了。

一晃又多年，其中的煎熬一言難盡。總之，最後，曉波被謀殺——以保外就醫的名義，他倆在類似囚籠的病房朝夕相處了不足一月。每天有100多人次進進出出，對曉波實施密不透風的所謂“搶救”。

曉波讓劉霞一定要出去，甚至夢想在人生最後時刻送她和劉輝到德國。他走後，警察也若乾次許願，只要配合他們，就會放她出國治病。

去年4月，我通過柏林牆時代最著名的詩人兼歌手沃爾夫.比爾曼夫婦，轉交給默克爾總理第一封求援信，附錄了劉霞手寫的“給有關部門的出國申請”，得到及時回應，并借此建立了信息渠道。如此算來，德中政府間不公開的交涉，已長達一年餘。直至今年4月初，根據種種貌似樂觀的跡象，劉霞一次次整理行裝，卻不料夢想破滅，曾對她許願的人也躲著不見，絕境中的她突發“以死抗爭”的衝動。

我勸她再等等，高危關頭，我不得不以《DonaDona，把自由給劉霞》為題，首次公開與她的談話錄音，從低調運作轉為高調呼籲，在國際社會引起廣泛關注。默克爾總理5月24日訪華前夕，我接受了德國電視二台的訪問，懇請默克爾總理將劉霞帶出來，如果不成，至少可提出探病，或者讓醫療專家去會診——對於困獸似的劉霞，這或許是迄今為止最大的獲救良機。

然而什麽都沒發生！儘管默克爾在德國駐京使館接見了李文足等多名709系獄律師家屬，並強調她想親自與劉霞接觸；儘管在兩國政府總理共同舉行的新聞發佈會上，李克強宣稱中方尊重人道主義，願意就“人權個案”與德方對話——這算最高級別的官方表態。而在劉霞那邊，警察提前數日登門，吩咐她去外地旅遊以迴避默克爾，劉霞堅決不走，警察也沒勉強，只是頻頻規勸，并告知不久有人會與她談出國。

記不清這是第幾次許願。警察說7月份，曉波周年忌日過後，肯定放她走。我表示懷疑。我說萬一7月份還是不放呢，不如先尋思應對之策。劉霞聞之驚恐，繼而抑鬱爆發。下面的對話根據5月25日，也就是默克爾訪華最後一天，我們的電話錄音整理：

廖：你上次說死死死，我像觸電一樣。 劉霞：我死了就不麻煩任何人嘛。 廖：哪能這樣？哪能輕易就去死啊，這個，使不得啊。 劉霞：所以陪著我，就安靜地陪著我；讓我幹這幹那的，我就誰的電話也不接了……你想一切都那麽容易[的話]，我能像個自由人一樣活著，我會一定要出去嗎？對不對？曉波要不是看著每天都是警察跟著，一屋子監控器什麽的，所有東西都不那麼…他能讓我出去找自由嗎？我在這邊也有好些朋友，有時候，把人逼得沒得選了…… 廖：是啊，上次你讓我把它錄下來，我覺得你已經崩潰了，我當時…… 劉霞：那是沒問題。但是你後面就不要說：你要這樣，你要那樣…… 廖：好好好…就等到7月份，看他們怎麼說。 劉霞：對。 廖：我感覺你還是能夠出來…不過，他媽的夠磨人……

又是沒完沒了的哀泣，無法打斷，更無法安慰。於是我放以色列歌手Motty Steinmetz領唱的《太多愛》。我曾經放過多次，劉霞非常喜歡。Motty Steinmetz從小跟祖父學習猶太傳統聖歌，她的歌詞均出自希伯來語聖經。劉霞在歌聲中哭訴：“他們要讓我在這兒，把曉波的刑期繼續服完。”

我張口結舌。想起去年曉波走，她回到家，望著滿屋子的書，舊的曉波都看過，新的卻來不及看了。她感覺窒息，剛要抓藥片，就栽倒在地。幾個鐘頭之後醒轉，渾身是傷。

我腦海深處湧現出一段同樣出自希伯來語的《雅歌》：

神這樣說：

你年輕時的恩愛，

新婚時的愛情，

你怎樣在曠野，

在未曾耕種之地跟隨我，

我都記得

這也是已在天上的曉波的心聲吧。劉霞接著說：“我要看看他們還能殘忍到什麼程度，無恥到什麼程度，看看這個世界，還能夠墮落到什麼程度……”

我說：“你這僅僅，也不為其它，僅僅是因為愛情，就經歷了這些……”

她說：“那憲法上應該再寫一條：愛劉曉波就是重罪，就是無期徒刑。”

我聞之膽寒。就不敢再接茬了。劉霞說：“我先去吃個藥。”

我只好告別：“再耐心一點，等到7月份。”

她嗯嗯著掛了電話，我卻在桌邊久久枯坐，并決定在天安門大屠殺29周年前夕，繼續爲她的自由呼籲。

親愛的朋友，無論你是西方人還是中國人，無論你是政要、議員、外交官還是普通公民——我也知道在曉波故交中，除了大批異見者，還有不少中外詩人、作家、學者、藝術家、漢學家、記者、演員、律師和公知——如果你在北京，請抽空去探望她；如果一個人害怕，請邀約一些志同道合者；如果他們不讓見，請在她樓下讀詩或喊話；如果他們阻止，請將詩傳單送給他們。

當然，如果你不在北京，或不太願意，至少可以傳播她的錄音，讓更多人——包括美國總統特朗普、法國總統馬克龍、英國首相梅姨及挪威的評委們——瞭解2010年諾貝爾和平獎得主劉曉波妻子這些年的遭遇。

2018年6月1日

相關閱讀：

《DonaDona，把自由給劉霞》， 廖亦武， 2018年5月2日。

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