Overseas dissidents initiate China Youth Human Rights Award

0 Comments | Asian Political News, May 21, 2001

BEIJING, May 17 Kyodo

A group of 40 leaders of China's 1989 democracy movement, based primarily overseas, has established a fund to support and reward democracy and human rights activists in mainland China, an activist who monitors human rights in China said Thursday.

The group, which includes prominent dissidents Wang Dan and Feng Congdi, bestowed its first China Youth Human Rights Award on Wednesday to Yang Zili, who ran a Web site carrying articles on political reform and China's nascent democracy movement until the site was shut down and Yang arrested on March 13.

The award, which carries $1,000 in prize money, is intended to reward youth in China who ''promote democracy and human rights, and who pay a high price for their undertakings,'' according to Frank Lu, who runs the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy.

It aims to ''encourage more youth to follow the spirit of the 1989 movement,'' he said in a statement. The prize will be awarded to one winner each year.

Yang won the first prize for ''adhering to his own faith under very adverse circumstances'' and his ''great efforts and fearlessness in promoting freedom of speech, freedom of thought and the protection of human rights,'' the statement said.

Yang earned a master's in computer science from the prestigious Beijing University before working as a computer engineer and setting up a Web site he dubbed Yangzi's Ideological Home. He was detained on March 13, but his family has not been given a reason.

Since the human rights fund's inception last October it has been supported primarily by donations from student leaders who escaped overseas following China's brutal crackdown on student protests in Tianenmen Square on June 4, 1989.

So far, $2,500 has been spent to assist mainland youths engaged in human rights work, the statement said. Organizers said the fund is also seeking contributions from outside donors.