Chinese journalist Cheng Yizhong was named as the laureate of the 2005 UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize by UNESCO Director-General Koďchiro Matsuura, on the recommendation of an independent jury of media professionals from all over the world.
The Jury, chaired by Mr Chongkittavorn (Thailand), includes the following members: Ruth de Aquino, (Brazil); Conor Brady, (Ireland); Oliver Clarke (Jamaica); Souleymane Diallo, (Guinea); Kunda Dixit, (Nepal); Yosri Fouda, (Qatar); Ferial Haffajee, (South Africa); Marvin Kalb, (USA); Daoud Kuttab, (Jordan); Remzi Lani, (Albania); Artūras Račas, (Lithuania); and two representatives of the Fundación Guillermo Cano (Colombia).
As editor of Nanfang Dushi Bao (Southern Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, no man is free.
Daily) Mr Cheng, 40, broke new ground in Chinese journalism. His editorial independence and professional know-how helped turn his paper into one of the most successful dailies in the country, publishing articles revealing the SARS epidemic and a case of death in a Canton police station.
Imprisoned for five months with two of his Nanfang Dushi Bao colleagues, Yu Huafeng and Li Minying, Mr Cheng was released in August 2004. While no formal charges were laid against him, he has been barred from resuming his professional activities.
Expressing his gratitude for the Prize, Mr Cheng said: “I feel very relieved and comforted, but I also feel sad. All we have done is act according to our conscience. Unfortunately we have had to pay a price for following our conscience.”
Cheng Yizhong: Insisting On Commonsense
Amidst Terror and Lies (My Speech of Thanks On Receiving the World Press
Freedom Award)
First of all, I must sincerely thank UNESCO
for giving me the 2005 Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom award. I thank
the executive board of UNESCO as well as the World Press Freedom Award's
international jury. At a dark and stormy time, this deed by UNESCO is
undoubtedly like offering firecoal in the midst of a snowy winter, and has
tremendous significance for the development of political culture and the
improvement of human rights in China. I am very sorry that I will not be
able to go to Dakar to receive the award in person. I thank the UNESCO
executive board for agreeing to read this acceptaance speech on my behalf to
the World Press Association.
I would like to use this opportunity to thank
the World Press Association, Reporters Without Borders, the Committee to
Project Journalists and my angry but silenced Chinese colleagues. I want
to thank Asia Weekly and Phoenix TV. I want to thank the Washington Post
and the New York Times. I want to thank the Voice of America and
BBC. I want to thank AP and AFP. [List of names of
individuals omitted] I want to thank the righteous and lovely Ms. Hu
Shuli and her Beijing-based Caijing Magazine for being the only medium that
reported on the Southern Metropolis Daily case based upon independently fair
principles on mainland China, and indeed Caijing Magazine's bottomline
approach represents a miracle in Chinese news coverage today.
[List of a long list of individual names
omitted]. You are all victims, and at the same time you are
saviors. I ask the audience here to forgive my very long list of people
to be thanked. The actual list is even longer, so I must apologize for
not listing everyone.
I want to thank all the saddened relatives,
friends and colleagues at Southern Metropolis Daily, New Beijing Daily and the
Southern Sports Magazine! At this time last year, terror was everywhere
and lies were everywhere. Your persistent small voices were
invincible and you blew down the black curtains and tall walls.
I must also thank those politicians who did
and then undid the case; if it were not for your recklessness and stupidity, I
would not have gained this honor and even more innocents
would be swept in broad-sweeping similiar cases. In a society with an
imperfect legal system, any false case can be fabricated, and they will also
seem serious and perfect from the outside.
I must thank my fellow fighters and victims
Mr. Yu Huafeng and Mr. Li Mingyin because your suffering was the shame of all
of China. In the famous 1963 speech at the Berlin Wall, former American
president John F. Kennedy said: "Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, no man is free."
Dear Mr. Yu Huafeng and Mr. Li Mingying, please enjoy this moment with
me! No matter when we were inside or outside the prison, we were
suffering because we were always the prisoners of the evil system. For
me, the outside was just a larger prison, a "city without a
sky." My well-off life is actually just a pigsty with ample food
and clothing.
Finally, I must especially thank my wife Chen
Junying. At a time when the black clouds loomed over the city and
disaster hung over my head, you were calm, strong and amiable to the point of
astonishing. When your eight-year-old son asked you, "Where is my
father?" and my eighty-year-old mother asked you, "Where is my
son?" you smiled and said, "He is traveling overseas on
business. Over there, it is very free and it is a beautiful
world." At a time when eavesdropping and monitoring were present
everywhere in our daily lives, when I was illegally arrested and detained for
160 days and nights, when our homes were searched two times and when the
judiciary illegally took possession of our personal information, you continued
to take your son to piano lessons. The sounds of the piano were bright
and fluid, but the people were no longer the same. While my mother
called to say that the nightmare woke her up, the son was engrossed in a
beautiful world.
A beautiful world! Yes, we need a
beautiful world.
A pigsty is not a beautiful world, even if it
is a pigsty with ample food and clothing. People should not live in an
environment that is hostile to human rights, humanitarianism, human nature and
human feelings. People must recover their common values about humankind.
We use commonsense as our weapons in
order to destroy the nightware weaved together by terror and lies. Do
not fight against commonsense. Do not act against conscience.
Be alert that lowly, shameless politicians will use the name of truth to
attack the truth and to use the claim of political correctness to profit or
vent their personal anger. We must enjoy our own personal experiences
and the fruits of human civilization.
For us, the most important task is to
increase the public's right to know and to increase political
transparency. This is the inescapable responsibility of Chinese news
workers which is the "force of the powerless." As news
workers, you have the right not to speak, but you do not have the right to
lie. Speaking the truth is not the highest standard for news workers,
but it is the bottom line. Yet sadly, this is a highly charged line to
cross right now.
All these problems are there because we have
been lost among terror and lies for so long. Terror is everywhere.
Lies are everywhere. We have been deceiving ourselves further and
further down this path. I believe that in the near future, we will look
back and find this insane and absurd episode to be absolutely
unthinkable. If we accept the prevalent evil as normal, we will be
co-conspirators in our own oppression. Bei Dao's poem's said: "We
are not innocent. We became co-conspirators early with the history in
the mirror."
Let us feel shame that we have to facing this
kind of situation from now on.
I take this opportunity to call out: Please
let the truth come back into our lives, and let the earth return under our
feet!
In 1975, Vaclav Havel wrote an open letter to
Czechkoslavia President and Communist Party General Secretary Gustav Husák:
"If life cannot be destroyed for good, then neither can history be
brought entirely to a halt. A secret streamlet trickles on beneath the heavy
cover of inertia and pseudo-events, slowly and inconspicuously undercutting
it. It may be a long process, but one day it must happen: the cover will no
longer hold and will start to crack."
-- This will definitely be our future as
well.
April 28, 2005 in Guangzhou, China.
