MacArthur
Foundation Awards Fellowship to Xiao Qiang
Xiao
Qiang, Executive Director of Human Rights in China (HRIC), has been
named a recipient of a 2001 MacArthur Fellowship, the John D. and
Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation announced today. The
MacArthur Fellowship is a stipend paid over five years to talented
individuals who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in
their creative pursuits, and a marked capacity for self-direction.
Although
an individual
award, I
want to thank the MacArthur Foundation for recognizing the
importance
of Human Rights in China's work.
I
especially appreciate the Foundation's unique role in recognizing and
supporting human creativity. This
fellowship also
affirms
the most precious value of our times: human solidarity.
I accept
this extraordinary honor with deep gratitude
to the two countries I love: China, where I was born and raised,
and America where I live now. I
cherish
values
of free expression, creativity, and human dignity; and commit
myself to continue to work
for
the full realization of these values in China
Xiao said.
Xiao, a self-exile, has
served as HRIC's Executive Director since 1991. HRIC is an
international NGO organization founded by Chinese scientists and
scholars in March 1989. HRIC monitors the implementation of
international rights standards in the PRC and carries out human rights
education
and advocacy among Chinese people in China and abroad. It is
recognized as a source for reliable information about persecution
of prisoners of conscience,
and violations of workers, migrants, women
and children's rights by the Chinese government.
I
am most grateful to everyone who has supported the organization over the
last
decade, and
all my HRIC colleagues, especially
Liu Qing, President of HRIC, whose courage and commitment is the guiding force
behind our organization. I also express my thanks to the
international human rights community. At
this special moment, my thoughts are with each prisoner
of conscience in
China and
those
that lost their lives or lost their loved ones during the Tiananmen
Massacre.
They are the reason and inspiration for my work. "
Xiao
said.
Xiao Qiang received a B.S.
from the University of Science and Technology of China and studied
astrophysics (1986-1989) at the University of Notre Dame. Two days
after the Tiananmen Square massacre, he traveled to China with
contributions for the victims' families from supporters in the United
States. After his return to the U.S. two months later, Xiao became a
full-time human rights worker, first for the Independent Federation of
Chinese Students and Scholars in Washington, D.C., and then for Human
Rights in China. He has spoken on behalf of the Chinese human rights
movement at each meeting of the United Nations Commission on Human
Rights since 1993.
Xiao Qiang joins a distinguished list of 2001 recipients including Kay
Redfield Jamison, a psychologist whose compelling writings and
clinical research greatly enhance our understanding of suicide and
other serious mental disorders; Michael Dickinson, a biologist
constructing original experimental instruments to reveal the
complexities of insect flight; Cynthia Moss,
a natural historian studying for more than thirty years the
ecology and social behavior of over 1000 wild African elephants at the
Amboseli National Park in Kenya; and Stephen Hough, a concert pianist
revealing masterworks from the pens of less well known composers from
the past and challenging compositions from those of the present.
The
MacArthur Fellows Program is intended to encourage people of
outstanding talent to pursue their own creative, intellectual, and
professional inclinations. In keeping with this purpose, the
Foundation awards fellowships directly to individuals rather than
through institutions. Recipients may be writers, scientists, artists,
social scientists, humanists, teachers, activists, or workers in other
fields, with or without institutional affiliations. They may use their
fellowship to advance their expertise, engage in interdisciplinary
work, or, if they wish, to change fields or alter the direction of
their careers.
The
John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, with assets
of about $4 billion, is a private, independent grant-making
institution dedicated to helping groups and individuals foster lasting
improvement in the human condition.
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