Wei Jingsheng Foundation News and Article Release Issue: A399-W213

魏京生基金会新闻与文章发布号：A399-W213

Release Date: August 4, 2008

发布日：2008年8月4日

Topic: Wei Jingsheng Receives Award in Los Angeles, Calling Countries to Boycott the Beijing Olympics (Central News Agency)

标题：魏京生洛杉矶领奖，吁各国抵制北京奥运(中央社)

Original Language Version: Chinese (Chinese at the end)

此号以中文为准（英文在前，中文在后）

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http://www.weijingsheng.org/report/report2008/report2008-08/LAaward080804WeiJSleaderA399-W213.htm　which contains identical information.

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Wei Jingsheng Receives Award in Los Angeles, Calling Countries to Boycott the Beijing Olympics

(Central News Agency reporter Chu LuSheng reporting from Los Angeles, August 2) Today in Los Angeles, the leader of the Chinese democracy movement Wei Jingsheng openly called all the freedom and democracy loving countries in the world to boycott the Beijing Olympics, and ask China to open itself for freedom of the Press and a respect of human rights.

Wei was invited by Los Angeles' "Pacific-Asian Human Rights Foundation", and made a special trip from Washington DC to attend this foundation's annual meeting in the Hilton Hotel, as well as to receive the "Human Rights Leader" award.

Most of the members of the "Pacific-Asian Human Rights Foundation" are Chinese coming from China who risked their lives to breath the free air. Initially set in Australia, it moved to Los Angeles this year. Its current executive director is William F. Mei.

According to William Mei, Wei Jingsheng received this award due to his many years of continued effort for Chinese democracy and human rights, as well as pushing the international society to pay attention to Chinese human rights.

When Wei Jingsheng was delivering his award acceptance speech, he first called all the freedom and democracy loving countries of the world to boycott the Beijing Olympics, and ask China to open for freedom of the Press and respect of human rights.

He also pointed out that he felt the award today has its special significance, because this is a new method of an award from the Chinese to Chinese. Recently, many people sacrificed for human rights and democracy in China, but there are not too many awards truly provided by Chinese. Instead, the non-Chinese often provide various awards.

Wei said that regardless whether inside China or overseas, we should have more and more similar awards to encourage more people to strive for human rights and democracy.