The Asia Pacific Human Rights Foundation hosted its annual awards ceremony in Auckland on Wednesday December 6.
Ms Wang Wenyi, the woman who suspended the U.S. nation in disbelief as she shouted out in protest when George Bush and Hu Jintao met at the White House in April won the "Hero of Freedom" Award.
Wang Wenyi earned her place in history by calling to China's leader, Hu Jintao, for an end to the persecution and killing in China by the Chinese regime.
Chen YongLin and Hao FengJun, two high-ranking defectors from the regime, now residing in Australia also won "Hero of Freedom" awards.
Famous human rights lawyer Gao ZhiSheng, who was recently arrested, beaten and is currently detained by the Chinese regime won a "Warrior of Human Rights" award, along with two other human rights attorneys, Chen GuangCheng and Guo FeiXiong.
The four human rights activists who won the "Advocate of Democracy" awards were Wang Bing Zhang, Yang JianLi, Zhu YuFu and Yang TianShui.
The leader of New Zealand Democracy movement, Mr Pan Qing, introduced the current status, personal stories and achievements of the 10 outstanding winners. He appraised their braveness and righteousness.
Many high-profile New Zealand human rights advocates attended the ceremony from organisations such as Amnesty International, Refuge Affairs, and Friends of Tibet.
Other human rights advocates, attorneys and international students also attended the ceremony hosted by the chief editor of New Zealand's Xin Bao Newspaper, Chen Wei Ming.
Chen, in his opening speech, said he would like to show his greatest respect to the winners of the awards.
He said people in China still cannot enjoy freedom and have protection from human rights abuses as we do in New Zealand. He said the justice system in China is a failure.
Dr Wang JunTao, a Dr. of Political Science, University of Colombia, USA, voiced his support for Chinese citizens' political choices and struggle against persecution.
The visiting scholar to Canterbury University gave out the "Hero of Freedom" awards.
"The current status of China is mainly due to the Deng Theory, which is only promoting rapid development of the economy, but neglecting the reform of political structure," said Dr Wang.
He thinks people tend to put the efforts made by many human rights activists into the same category as the Mao-style political movements in the last several decades.
As a result, China has made "the wrong decision in excluding reform of political structure, and not adopting the advanced civilization of democracy."
"The methodology they choose is economic development only, which is causing the severe imbalance in the distribution of wealth."
The result, said Dr Wang, has been the cause of more violence and deterioration of the moral standard in China. He believes people will only be awakened when lives are sacrificed.
"No Righteousness, No Harmony in Society"
Heval Hylan, International Human Rights attorney and General Secretary of New Zealand Refugee Affairs Committee, also appraised the 10 winners as Chinese democracy heroes.
He pointed out that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has violated the International Human Rights Treaty which they signed in 1988 by systematically violating human rights, the freedom of party formation, and the persecution against Falun Gong.
As to the law system in China, he thinks it is fraught with problems, such as the huge numbers of death sentences handed out and state-sanctioned organ harvesting.
The president of Friends of Tibet, Thuten Kesang, thanked the Asia Pacific Human Rights Foundation for giving him the honour to be at the awards.
He also took the chance to point out the crimes the CCP has committed against the Tibetan people.
He said the 6-year-old successive Panchen Lama has been in custody since 1995. He doesn't know if he's still alive.
Another recent incident where Chinese soldiers shot a group of Tibetans in the back as they were attempting to cross the border is further example of the severe abuse Tibetans are under in China, said Thuten.
Thuten hopes one day he can go back to Tibet, "and if all the people who are attending this event could go back to China, then a democratic China would have been achieved and the whole world would benefit."
Amnesty International's John Neil said the CCP has been out of control in detaining its own people.
He said many Falun Gong practitioners are in detention centres in China and their organs are being harvested.
However, because no one could survive from such crimes, there is no one to take the CCP to court.
He said the persecution of journalists, human rights advocates, web users and religious groups, has wounded the civilization of China, which has the most rich and creative culture.
He praised the award winners as the "warriors of light".
Award winner Chen YongLin said he cannot be a person of conscience without the help from others. He is humble about being regarded as a hero.
"The real heroes are the ones who fight close to the CCP, such as Gao Zhisheng, and the thousands and millions of Falun Gong practitioners who risk their lives to distribute the Nine Commentaries of Chinese Communist Party in Mainland China.
They are true heroes, the spirit of our nation," he said.
He also said Hong Kong has become the colony of CCP and showed his respect to Lu SiQing, of the China Human Rights Democracy Movement.
Chen will donate the money he got from the award to the Sydney China Politics and Religious Refugee Support Network Inc.
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