Notre Dame’s Institute for Church Life presents the 2015 Human Dignity Lecture. Chinese civil rights activist and former political prisoner Chen Guangcheng will speak on “Interpreting Reform: Human Dignity and Human Rights in Contemporary China.”
Chen, a lawyer who has been blind since childhood, escaped from nearly two years of house arrest in 2012 and, aided by fellow Chinese activists, fled to the United States embassy in Beijing. His long detention had riveted the attention of global media whose coverage aided in his eventual escape.
His lecture will address the recent reforms in China, including the relaxation of the one-child policy and the promise of the Chinese government to govern by “the rule of law,” and examine whether or not these reforms signal a change of course in the government’s attitudes toward the inviolability of human dignity and its attendant rights.
Co-sponsors include the Center for Civil and Human Rights; the Center for Ethics and Culture; the Center for Social Concerns; the Kellogg Institute for International Studies, and the Liu Institute for Asia and Asian Studies.
This event is free and open to the public.