Dear Friend,
              Entering 2018, we wish you a wonderful New Year. 
             We will continue working with you in helping to bring attention to the many people whom we see as giving the world a spark for hopefulness and love.
             2017 can be remembered as the year when China's president Xi Jinping consolidates his China dream beyond the imagination of the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. 
            Thought police are in all China's internet surveillance with the requirement of real name registration.  WeChat, the all-in-one messaging calling app is being used by China as a national id that will make any user responsible for its own group chat as the government of China continuously censor speech and expression in pushing for their catch all phrase of "maintaining security".  Western corporations became collaborators in censorship when Apple removed VPN apps that allow Chinese in China to bypass China's Great Firewall.
            The death of Nobel Peace Laureate Liu Xiaobo in July brought to the world attention that any long term imprisonment by China may in fact be a death sentence.  Liu was sentenced to 11 years in prison on Christmas day 2009; detained in 2008, he had less than two years left in his sentence.  Yang Tongyan, 杨同彦 a writer and member of PEN, died in November after being released for medical parole in August for a brain tumor.  Yang was sentenced to 12 years in prison in 2006 and was only a few months towards the end of his sentence. In 2014, attorney Cao Shunli 曹順利 died after she was detained in 2013 as she was leaving for Geneva for a review on China's human rights record. This pattern of causing the resultant death of detainees or prisoners in China is alarming.  Currently, Visual Artists Guild is concerned that Huang Qi, 黃琦,a human rights activist who started an early web site "64 Tianwang" since 1998 and imprisoned twice before, is now in danger of dying while in custody.  The 8 years sentence in December of blogger Wu Gan 吳 淦 is certain to result in his health deterioration in the future.
            While the world may celebrate China's commitment to the Paris climate accord, few recognizes that in a totalitarian government, the authorities can set their goal for peak emission by 2030 with no regard to how it will impact ordinary citizens. Minister of Environment Protection Li Ganjie's 李干杰; order to stop coal use by three million housholds in 28 cities around Beijing resulted in the destruction of coal stoves of those homes when replacements were mostly not ready during the depth of Beijng's deadly winter. Within the same policy of pollution control, China started to expel its low-end population "低端人口" when a fire broke out in late November in Beijing where 19 people died.  The forced eviction and demolition of homes for migrant workers on Beijing is part of the government plan to limit population in Beijing in co-ordination with president Xi Jinping's plan for a "beautiful China" 美好生活as announced during the 19th Congress in October.
            Perhaps the most Orwellian nightmare China's government is doing is the collection of biometric DNA of the people in Xinjiang province where 11 million Uighur Muslims live.  With pressure from China, Egypt and other countries have forced the return of Uighur students back to China where they have disappeared.  One would wonder whether such data could be used for China's organ trade.
            Self-immolation in Tibet continues with seven this year.  We must convince the Tibetans that ending one's life will not help to end the repression.  Each and everyone of their life is necessary to continue to preserve Tibetan culture and language for the future.
            Bringing attention to China's human rights violations will help to give those in China fighting for their rights a ray of hope that the world is watching.  China's government may proclaim beautiful policy to the world but the facts of such policy actions will belie the government's declarations.  The Chinese Communists Party should review their own disastrous history to truly understand why they continue to fail their people despite such flowery policy such as the Great Leap Forward when over 40 millions died of the biggest man made famine in human history.
Ann Lau
Chair, Visual Artists Guild

Press Release:  For Immediate Release.
Visual Artists Guild's China Dream for China's 19th Communist Party Congress
                As China starts its 19th Communist Party Congress on Wednesday, October 18, 2017, Visual Artists Guild's China Dream is that the Communist Party Congress will begin to join the global village in implementing the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights of which China is a signator when the Peoples Republic of China signed the UN Charter in 1971.
                Wu Lihong, named by China's Peoples National Congress as an "Environmental Warrior", have already "being vacationed" by now.  After he was honored by the government in 2005, Mr. Wu later was sent to prison in 2007 when he refused to stop bringing attention to the pollution of Lake Tai, China's second largest fresh water lake.  Mr. Wu was released in 2010 but has been under surveillance since.  Visual Artists Guild honored Mr. Wu in 2013 but he was not allowed to come to the United States to accept the award.  Visual Artists Guild's China Dream is that Mr. Wu would be finally allowed to come to the United States to accept our award now that China has signed the Paris Accord and hopefully recognizes the importance of environmental pollution.
                Another of Visual Artists Guild's China Dream is that the human rights lawyers, Xie Yang 謝陽, Li Heping 李和平,Wang Quanzhang 王 全璋 and Jiang Tianyong 江天勇, who are either waiting on sentencing or trial will have all their sentences revoked.  The lawyers have defended environmentalist, political activists, underground Christians, Falun Gong practitioners, victims of land grabs, victims of forced evictions and other vulnerable groups.
              Visual Artists Guild is distressed by the information that some of the human rights lawyers have been fed drugs that caused them various health and mental problems and that the young children of Wang Quanzhang and Li Heping have been refused admissions to schools.  Such a policy of targeting children of dissidents harks back to the time of imperial China.  Even Mr. Wu's daughter was allowed to go to school after her father was imprisoned although she was watched by security personnel as a young child walking to school.
             In targeting universal values as one of the seven perils of the Communist Party, China's President Xi Jinping in his secret Document #9 has identified his fear of a more enlightened Chinese citizenry.  China's cyber security apparatus is now no longer satisfied with hiring the 50 Cents Party to comment on internet sites or delete offending words or phrases, it has gone on to make citizens as part of the cyber security as evidenced by Weibao's giving points to citizen "supervisors" to report on any violations of the government's taboo subjects.  Such frequent flyer points has brought the Chinese Communist Party's system of neighbors informing on neighbors to the 21st century.  Interestingly, while Twitter is not allowed to operate in China, China's government agencies have nevertheless embraced Twitter as their preferred cyber propaganda tool.
             The government of China during this 19th Party Congress should review China's history especially that of the fall of the Yuan (Mongol) Dynasty when the Han people were only allowed a chopping knife for every ten households.  Oh, by the way, it has been declared in China a few days ago that shops are no longer allowed to sell knives until further notice.
Ann Lau
Chair, Visual Artists Guild
October 17, 2017

PRESS ADVISORY - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 8 PM
DETAILS BELOW
Event Tonight 8 p.m. Grand Park
           Visual Artists Guild mourns the passing of Nobel Peace Laureate, Liu Xiaobo today while still under the guard of the Chinese government in a hospital in China.
           Liu Xiaobo had spent a greater part of his life urging for political reform in China.  His 2008 manifesto, Charto 08 calls for democratic reform and resulted in his being sentenced on Christmas day 2009 to 11 years in prison.  In 2010 he was awarded the Nobel Peace prize.  During the Nobel award ceremony, an empty chair became the representation of Liu.  He is only the second Nobel Peace laureate who died in custody since the German Carl von Ossietzky who was awarded the peace prize in 1935 for opposing Nazism and died in 1938.
           Visual Artists Guild will remember what Liu Xiaobo said at his Final Statement, "I have no enemies and no hatred... Hatred only eats away at a person's intelligence and conscience and an enemy mentality can poison the spirit of an entire people (as the experience of our country during Mao era clearly shows.)
           As Visual Artists Guild's mission in championing the right of freedom of speech and expression, we will forever be guided by Liu Xiaobo's Final Statement, "Free expression is the base of human rights, the root of human nature and the mother of truth.  To kill free speech is to insult human rights, to stifle human nature, and to suppress truth."
           May Liu Xiaobo rest in peace.
           At this time we call on the government of China to release Liu Xia from house arrest, allow her to leave China if she so wishes.
Ann Lau
Chair, Visual Artists Guild
WHAT:  Candelight Memorial for Nobel Peace Laureate, Liu Xiaobo
WHEN: Today, July 13 2017 , 8 p.m.
              2017年7月13日下午8時
WHERE:
              Grand Park,
              200 N Grand Ave, Los Angeles, 90012
              between Hill and Broadway, Metro Civic Center, Grand Park
SPONSORING ORGANIZATION:
              Hong Kong Forum Paul Ip 626-524-5685
              Los Angeles China Democracy Platform  Weiming Chen 702-750-6066
              Visual Artists Guild  Ann Lau 310-433-0697

           視覺藝術家協會今天哀悼諾貝爾和平獎獲得者劉曉波，劉曉波死於中國政府監督下的一家醫院。
           劉曉波一生推動中國的政治改革。他在2008年零八憲章 呼籲進行民主改革，導致他在2009年聖誕節被判處11年監禁。 2010年，他被授予諾貝爾和平獎。在諾貝爾獎頒獎典禮上，空椅成為他代表。自從1935授予和平獎的德國反對納粹主義的Dee Carl von Ossietzky在1938監禁期死亡, 劉曉波是第二位諾貝爾和平獎獲得者死於監禁中。
           視覺藝術家協會 不會忘記劉曉波在他"最後陳述"說的話，“我沒有敵人，也沒有仇恨...因為，仇恨會腐蝕一個人的智慧和良知，敵人意識將毒化一個民族的精神，煽動起你死 我活的殘酷鬥爭." (正如毛澤東時代那樣殘酷鬥爭.)
           視覺藝術家協會的使命捍衛言論表達自由的權利，我們將永遠以劉曉波的“最後陳述"為指導，“表達自由，人權之基，人性之本，真理之母。封殺言論自由，踐踏 人權，窒息人性，壓抑真理".
           劉曉波安息。
           在這個時候，我們呼籲中國政府釋放劉霞, 停止軟禁她，如果她願意的話讓她離開中國。
劉雅雅
視覺藝術家協會