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 On Tuesday June 17, the National Endowment for Democracy honored the heroic efforts of Chinese workers, lawyers, and writers working to advance democratic values and fundamental rights within China with the presentation of its annual Democracy Award. Lawyers Li Baiguang and Li Heping were able to attend the Capitol Hill ceremony to accept their awards, while four other honorees, Chen Guangcheng, Zhang Jianhong, Yao Fuxin and Hu Shigen, who are all serving sentences in Chinese prisons, were honored in absentia, along with Dr.Teng Biao, a lawyer and professor who is unable to leave China.
The Democracy Awards, which this year focused on work in the areas of Human Rights and Rule of Law, Religious Freedom, Freedom of Expression, and Worker Rights, were presented by three members of the US Congress, Reps. Chris Smith (R-NJ), Adam Schiff (D-CA), and Frank Wolf (R-VA), as well as the vice chairman of NED’s Board of Directors Richard Gephardt, who is the former House Minority Leader. Under Secretary of State for Democracy and Global Affairs Paula Dobriansky and House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Howard Berman (D-CA) also made remarks at the program. Wang Tiancheng, another Chinese lawyer who has spent 5 years in prison for his activism, was on hand to accept the award given to Yao Fuzin and Hu Sigen for their defense of worker rights.
The award presentation was preceded by a roundtable discussion, Law, Rights and Democracy in China: Perspectives of Leading Advocates. The honorees will be joined in the discussion by other notable activists and advocates for basic rights in China, including: Han Dongfang, executive director of China Labour Bulletin; Bob Fu, founder of the China Aid Association and a student leader of te 1989 Tiananmen democracy movement; Sharon Hom, executive director of Human Rights in China; Xiao Qiang, founder and publisher of China Digital Times; Wang Tiancheng, a founder of the Liberal Democratic Party of China and the Free Labor Union of China; and Yang Jianli, a Chinese democracy activist recently released from prison, who now is president of Initiatives for China.
NED also honored the life-long contributions of one of the US Congress’ most stalwart supporters of human rights in China and every other part of the world, the late Tom Lantos (D-CA) with the presentation of its Democracy Service Medal.
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