Excerpt: Du Daobin's Views on Going to Prison

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As for going to prison, rationally speaking, I'm not that worried. I've reached the conclusion that I haven't committed any jailable offense; my essays fall under the category of freedom of speech and are protected by the Constitution, thus they don't qualify as grounds for my being sent to jail. But maybe in China, where human rights are not fully protected; speaking the truth according to my conscience may be viewed by some people as breaking the law. That truth may be labeled “harmful information.” The machinery of dictatorship doesn't have much human feeling; perhaps there will be a day when I will be taken away just like Liu Di or Yang Zili [of the New Youth Study Group].

But even if I do end up in prison, I am not really that afraid. Chen Duxiu once said it is the fate of a Chinese intellectual to go from his study to jail and from jail back to his study. I've dared to hold dissenting political views, and I'm an unrepentant true believer in freedom and democracy. In the past, I might have gotten beheaded, but now I'm not worried about being executed. I've long ago prepared myself for going to prison: it's a matter of the so-called “if he's afraid of jail he's not a true believer in freedom and democracy,” and “like fish and meat on the cutting board, we can be cut to pieces by the butcher.” In my subconscious, I don't doubt that I already have one foot at the doorway of the prison. If there comes a day when I actually do face the fire of prison, I will be calm and confident. But will my going to prison change anything? Will it resolve anything? Is it possible that, after serving time in prison, I will abandon liberalism, and start believing in communism?

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Translated by Andrea Worden

*. This is an excerpt from Du Daobin's essay entitled “We Have Lost Our Right of Freedom of Association,” which was originally posted in Chinese on The Epoch Times ( Dajiyuan ) website on August 19, 2003, available at http://dajiyuan.com/gb/3/8/19/n.361679.htm . Du wrote this essay approximately two months before he was taken into custody.

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