Of all those whom we at the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation have honored with the Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom—and they include such famed defenders of freedom as Vaclav Havel, Lech Walesa, Vladimir Bukovsky, and Harry Wu—none surpasses the courage and commitment of Elena Bonner, who passed away last Saturday. Known best as the widow of Andrei Sakharov, the renowned Soviet dissident and Nobel Prize Peace Prize winner, Mrs. Bonner—despite serious health problems—became a tireless advocate of human rights and unflinching opponent of political oppression. When Mikhail Gorbachev, still head …
The Norwegian Nobel Committee held its annual awards ceremony last week in Oslo, where it intended to award the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize to Chinese intellectual and human rights activist Liu Xiaobo “for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China.” Still imprisoned, Liu was prevented from traveling to Oslo to participate in the ceremony, and his family and friends were denied permission to leave China and accept the prize on his behalf. Also notably absent from the ceremony was U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi …
This week, Chinese government censors tried their best to stop the spread of the news jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Liu is serving 11 years in a Chinese prison for signing a document called “Charter 08,” a declaration of human rights that any American can take for granted. Dr. Lee Edwards speaks in this week’s Heritage in Focus podcast on the meaning of this significant Peace Prize award, and the state of human rights in China in the historical context of totalitarian communist regimes. …
Liu Xiaobo, a primary author of the Charter 08 document calling for better human rights and democracy in China, has just won the Nobel Peace Prize. At the G-20 Summit this November in South Korea, President Obama, last year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, will meet with President Hu Jintao, the leader of China and the country where Liu Xiaobo is in jail. It’s a perfect opportunity for President Obama to put America’s actions where its mouth is. Members of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission and some their colleagues in …
This morning, the U.S. State Department announced that the U.S. had submitted its “Report of the United States of America” to the United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights. This report was submitted as part of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) conducted by the UN Human Rights Council (HRC). In November, the U.S. Administration will formally present the findings of its report to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. Judging from the content of the U.S. report, that November presentation will consist of much wailing and gnashing of …
The popular appeal of nuclear weapon free world rhetoric has not been lost on Tehran. This is an insight the Iranian regime shares with Obama administration, which has made nuclear arms reduction arguably its top foreign policy objective. Not to be outdone by the Nuclear Summit here in Washington, the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad held its own public relations extravaganza last weekend, a conference in Tehran under the banner “Nuclear Energy for All, Nuclear Weapons for None.” The goal of the summit was allegedly to promote global disarmament and …
Council on Foreign Relations senior fellow Walter Russell Mead writes at Foreign Policy: Neither a cold-blooded realist nor a bleeding-heart idealist, Barack Obama has a split personality when it comes to foreign policy. So do most U.S. presidents, of course, and the ideas that inspire this one have a long history at the core of the American political tradition. In the past, such ideas have served the country well. But the conflicting impulses influencing how this young leader thinks about the world threaten to tear his presidency apart — and, …
The world needs American leadership. In the interwar years, we saw that the enemies of freedom advance when the great liberal and democratic powers of the day failed to lead. We saw it again in the dark years of the Cold War under President Carter. The alternative to an America willing and able to lead is not a paradise of peace through engagement. It is a world where the undemocratic, the unsatisfied, and the illiberal powers of the world advance at the expense of American ideals, American interests, and America’s …
Liu Xiaobo, one of the primary drafters of the Charter 08 manifesto by Chinese intellectuals calling for protection of human rights, comprehensive political reforms, and a democratic government in China, has had an official case filed against him for “inciting subversion of state power.” Liu, a veteran of the 1989 Tiananmen movement and an influential writer, has been detained a year without charge. Now the strong likelihood of his conviction sends a message to other Charter 08 signatories broadly and other human rights activists that the Chinese government will do …
The Nobel Committee’s choice of President Obama for the Nobel Peace Prize was baffling, to Norwegians and Americans alike. Even President Obama himself was amazed. As he admitted in his acceptance speech today, compared to other recipients, he has indeed accomplished “very little.” (And he had accomplished even less when the nomination was made last February, just days into his presidential term.) In some ways, it has made a joke of the entire idea of the Norwegian Peace Prize. Yet, looked at from the perspective of creating controversy, the Nobel …
