MEDIA RELEASE COURTESY OF: PEN

Acclaimed Australian novelist, short story writer and screenwriter, Frank Moorhouse is boycotting a major writers’ tour of China in protest against the recent gaoling of the Chinese writer Liu Xiaobo.

The internationally renowned Chinese writer was gaoled for 11 years on Christmas Day 2009 for “subverting State power.”

Moorhouse, a winner of the Social Equity Walkley Award for Excellence in Journalism, has written an open letter to the Australian Ambassador to China, Dr Geoff Raby, expressing his reasons for withdrawing from the March tour. (Full statement attached below).

“Because I have been vocal about freedom of expression in my own country and have been recognised for it, it would be unseemly of me to go to China and to remain silent,” he said in the letter.

“I feel that I have an unusual demand on my conscience, and have special reasons to act.”

Moorhouse, the winner of the Miles Franklin Award(Dark Palace, 2000), The Age Book of the Year Award and the Australian Literature Society's Gold Medal (Forty-Seventeen, 1988), said the trip would have been an important one for Australian writers.

“It would have given us an opportunity to read our work, speak, and visit universities during ‘Australian Writers’ Weeks’ in the cities of Beijing and Chengdu. It also included participation in the international writers’ festivals in Hong Kong and Shanghai,” he said.

Moorhouse said he made his act of withdrawal as an individual writer, as a member of Sydney PEN’s distinguished Writers Panel and as a recipient in 2008 of the PEN Keneally Award for his defence of freedom of expression in the essay “A Writer in a Time of Terror”.

“In the essay, and elsewhere, I argued wide freedom of expression is increasingly accepted as both possible within the safe order of a society and basic to the intellectual and aesthetic development of the individual and of the society and to punish people for their opinions is unjust,” he said in his letter to Dr Raby.

“I discussed the possibility of going ahead with the visit and while in China using the PEN tactic of the ‘empty chair’ on stage at the events I would’ve participated in. The empty chair symbolises a writer in gaol and the organisers of the session at a festival explains the purpose of the chair and sometimes names a writer who it signifies.

“ My advice from International PEN's Asian specialists and from DFAT was this tactic could breach Chinese law and, because of the unpredictability of the Chinese legal system, the outcome for me, for my fellow writers, and for the organisers of the event could be serious and endanger further visits to China by those involved.”

Sydney PEN and International PEN have joined the Australian Government, the European Union, the American Government, the United Nations and hundreds of international writers protesting Liu's Xiaobo’s persecution.

PEN has installed an empty chair in the University of Technology, Sydney, to raise awareness of the harsh treatment of the Chinese writer after his imprisonment.

The Australian Embassy has frequently raised Liu's case and one of its first secretaries, together with a small number of other foreign embassy officials, attempted to observe his trial, but was refused access to the court.

Moorhouse said his withdrawal from the tour would be communicated on the Chinese civil rights grapevine to those writers in prison.

PEN supports Moorhouse's decision. It has also stated its support for those Australian writers who have decided to engage with China by deciding to undertake the tour.

“Individual writers must consider what is the best course of action for them, and that engagement can be a fruitful approach for writers visiting countries such as China that have troubled histories of free expression,” said the President of Sydney PEN, Dr Bonny Cassidy.

Frank Moorhouse is a novelist, short story writer, screenwriter and critic.

Part of the Sydney Push movement in the 1960s, he has since won the Miles Franklin Award (Dark Palace, 2000), The Age Book of the Year Award and the Australian Literature Society's Gold Medal (Forty-Seventeen, 1988).

Moorhouse is a member of the Sydney PEN Centre's Writers Panel. His essay, "The writer in a time of terror", published in Griffith Review 14 (2007), won the Alfred Deakin Prize for an Essay Advancing Public Debate in the Victorian Premier's Literary Awards as well as the award for Social Equity Journalism in The Walkley Awards for Excellence in Journalism.

Frank Moorhouse letter of withdrawal from China Writers' Tour 2010:

I was invited by the Australian Ambassador to China Dr Geoff Raby to join a group of writers to participate in a writers’ tour of China this March.

The trip would give us opportunities to read our work, speak, and visit universities during ‘Australian Writers’ Weeks’ in the cities of Beijing and Chengdu and would also include participation in the international writers’ festivals in Hong Kong and Shanghai. The tour has been funded by DFAT and by private sponsors.

Having at first accepted I have now chosen to withdraw following the gaoling on Christmas Day 2009 of the Chinese writer Liu Xiaobo for eleven years and the disappearance around this time of Liu Di a supporter of Liu Xiaobo which confirms that the Chinese government, against international expectations, is not moving in the direction of freedom of expression as expressed in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

This seems also to be confirmed by the extension of political censorship of internet search engines and political interference with email in China.

Sydney PEN and International PEN have joined the Australian government, the European Union, the American government, the UN and hundreds of international writer protesting Liu's Xiaobo’s persecution. The Australian Embassy has frequently raised Liu's case and one of its first secretaries, together with a small number of other foreign embassy officials, attempted to observe his trial but were refused access to the court.

I make this act of withdrawal as an individual writer, but also as a member of PEN’s distinguished Writers Panel and as a recipient in 2008 of the PEN Keneally Award for my defence of freedom of expression in my essay A Writer in a Time of Terror in the Griffith Review, which also received the Alfred Deakin Award for best essay contributing to public debate and for which I was presented with a Walkley Award.

In the essay, and elsewhere, I argued that wide freedom of expression is increasingly accepted as both possible within the safe order of a society and basic to the intellectual and aesthetic development of the individual and of the society and to punish people for their opinions is unjust.

I discussed the possibility of my going ahead with the visit and while in China using the PEN tactic of the ‘empty chair’ on stage at the events in which I would’ve participated in China. The empty chair symbolises a writer in gaol and the organisers of the session at a festival explains the purpose of the chair and sometimes names a writer who it signifies.

My advice from International PEN's Asia specialists and from DFAT was that this tactic could breach Chinese law and, because of the unpredictability of the Chinese legal system, the outcome for me, for my fellow writers, and for the organisers of the event could be serious and endanger further visits to China by those involved.

I have not argued for a boycott of the tour by my fellow writers. Writers sometimes accept invitations to go into places where governments infringe basic freedoms. They do so for diverse motives: to investigate or to passively observe so as to incorporate their experiences into their future writing; sometimes they remain neutral or silent so as to further their understanding of these societies; and sometimes these visits can be justified as soft diplomacy – as a way of representing liberal values in illiberal countries through informal conversations and by the work they choose to read publicly while in that country. Sometimes, just being a writer is sufficient justification.

Because I have been vocal about freedom of expression in my own country and have been recognised for it, it would be unseemly of me to go to China and to remain silent. I feel that I have an unusual demand on my conscience, and have special reasons to act.

It was confirmed to me by International PEN that my endorsing of PEN’s protest by withdrawing from the tour would be communicated on the Chinese civil rights grapevine to those writers in prison.

To this end, I have asked PEN here in Australia and International PEN to make my position known.

signed,
Frank Moorhouse

For further information:
Dr Bonny Cassidy
0417 252 004
bonny.cassidy@gmail.com
Or Judy Goldman, Mediaways, 0402 277226

www.pen.org.au