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Dear Representatives of People in Need, Dear President Havel, Ladies and Gentlemen,

 

I stand here before you to speak about women. From the moment when the police took away Mr. Liu Xiaobo on 8.12.2008, his wife, Mrs. Liu Xia, could only see him once. Nor did she see him at the end of January, at the time of the spring festivities, the most important Chinese holidays. Mrs. Liu Xia tried to send books to her husband. First she was turned down but persisted and in the end she succeeded. I recently met Mrs. Liu. She is still waiting for an opportunity to see her husband again. She did not accept an invitation to come to Prague because she wants to be near her husband even if she cannot see him. She still waits for a car to come and take her to an unknown place where he is waiting to see her. She said she stayed by his side in constant expectation.

Behind every of these brave men, who have been deprived of freedom for their striving for human rights and democracy, stands a weeping yet strong woman. As you know, Mrs. Zeng Jinyan, wife of the imprisoned Mr. Hu Jia, looks after a little daughter and you can surely imagine her delicate situation. The struggle for human rights and democracy goes for these women hand in hand with their dearest and nearest, on whom they lavish all their love and care. These remarkable women are a firm foundation for our efforts and the source of our strength.

Behind the back of each of those men, who make sacrifices for the cause of human rights and democracy, stands also a weeping yet strong mother. There are the mothers of Tiananmen Square, whose children were killed by tanks twenty years ago. The pain of these mothers and their lamentation are to this day confined outside the space where the public can look and their grief at the loss of beloved children is augmented by the authorities’ lack of cooperation. I know a mother whose son was shot dead in Tiananmen Square aged 28. The stigma of “political culpability” is associated with this mother’s daughter and the girl could not marry for long years because of her brother’s tragedy. Eventually she succeeded in starting a family but her husband, as well as their son, could not be told about the brother who was killed. How great a pain and it cannot be expressed and must remain hidden in the heart. Some of the mothers, including the founder of the association, Professor Ding Zilin, stand in the first rank of those who call for human rights and democracy. Despite old age they carry in their own hands a torch of hope for the generations of our children.

I would also like to speak for the mothers of the victims of the Wenchuan earthquake. Their children died last year during an earthquake in the province of Sichuan, in ruins of schools whose construction did not comply with standards. Racked by pain over the loss of a child, they are still demanding the truth about the reasons why it was schools that collapsed during the natural disaster and seek justice. Like the mothers of the Tiananmen victims, they are confined outside the space where the public can look. Only rarely is a news item about them published and their freedom to meet people from the outside is curtailed. In China there are also mothers of the victims of contaminated milk, whose demand to get justice done by way of law has not yet been satisfied.

These women and mothers and their dead children fill me with pain and concern. We must not forget about them and we must help them. Our remembrance and help, awareness of their suffering and admiration of their courage and the purity of love in us ceaselessly appeal to conscience, humanity and morality and remind us of the love and responsibility that we owe the world.

 

Thank you for the occasion to share my thoughts with you.