Washington, DC, December 4, 2009- The Laogai Research Foundation has launched a Twitter campaign to free noted scholar and human rights advocate to Liu Xiaobo. Liu was one of the primary authors of Charter '08, a peaceful online manifesto calling for practical democratic reform in China with over 10,000 signatories. To mark the one-year anniversary of Liu's detention and the release of Charter '08, LRF has launched a ten day Twitter campaign calling on advocates around the world to follow @freeliuxiaobo and re-tweet quotes from Charter '08, in both English and Mandarin. At the conclusion of the campaign, the number of followers and re-tweets will be sent in a letter to President Obama, President Hu Jintao, the Chinese Embassy, and the Supreme People's Procuratorate of China, calling for the release of Liu Xiaobo.

Building on momentum from October 1, 2009, when the U.S. House of Representatives (with the Senate concurring) passed House Congressional Resolution 151 stating, "That it is the sense of Congress that China's Government immediately release Liu Xiaobo and begin making strides toward true representative democracy," LRF hopes to spur global activism on behalf of Liu and Charter '08. LRF Executive Director Harry Wu said the following of Liu, "Liu's writings and criticisms of the CCP were pursued in a peaceful manner, and we cannot tolerate his detention."

For more information on the campaign to free Liu Xiaobo, go to http://www.laogai.org/blog/free-liu-xiaobo and www.twitter.com/freeliuxiaobo.

For further inquiry please contact Laogai@laogai.org or (202) 408-8300. You can also follow the Laogai Research Foundation on Twitter @laogai.

The Laogai Research Foundation is a not-for-profit organization founded by former political prisoner Harry Wu in 1992. Its mission is to gather information on and raise public awareness of the Laogai--China's extensive system of forced labor prison camps. For more information, please visit www.laogai.org, e-mail laogai@laogai.org, or call +1-202-408-8300.