Vaclav Havel, who died yesterday, will perhaps be remembered most of all for his role in the civic initiative Charter 77, which led to his country’s Velvet Revolution and inspired dissidents throughout the Soviet bloc to defeat communism. Decades later, “living in truth” – his famous phrase from the essay “Power of the Powerless” – continues to inspire people living under the most repressive regimes. Among these are the signers of Charter 08, a blueprint for a free China based on democracy, the rule of law, and human rights. Perry Link, the China scholar and English-language translator of Charter 08, has written that it was “conceived and written in conscious admiration” of Charter 77. Havel returned the compliment by becoming a staunch advocate for the Chinese “Chartists.”
Liu Xiaobo was perhaps the most prominent one of three hundred initial signers of Charter 08 – the signature list later grew to several thousand. As a result, the Chinese government detained him on the eve of Charter 08’s release in December 2008, and ultimately sentenced him to 11 years in jail for “incitement to subversion of state power.” While in jail, he won the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize.
