我很荣幸地站在这里替我的朋友许志永接受这份荣誉。但此时此刻我的内心却无比沉重，因为许志永正在中国的一所监狱中服刑，而就在他被法院宣判有罪的十几天前，他的女儿刚刚来到这个世界上，许志永不仅没有能够看到女儿出生，而且将有数年不能陪伴女儿成长。
十年来，许志永为了中国社会的公平正义做出了巨大的努力，也付出了巨大的代价。他和滕彪、俞江三位法学博士上书全国人大，成功地推动了收容遣送制度的废除，让数亿农民工告别了随时被抓捕遣返回乡的噩梦。许志永一直为许许多多同胞的自由而战斗，他自己却一次又一次失去自由。他已两次被捕入狱，而殴打、绑架、失踪、软禁更是与他如影相随。许志永曾说：监狱，是一个民族通往自由的必经之路。从刘晓波到许志永，中国的人权捍卫者正前赴后继地行走在这条光荣而充满荆棘的道路上。
从中国当局对新公民运动的镇压，到近两个月来对学者、律师、作家、和活动人士的大肆抓捕，已清楚地表明，更大的人权灾难正在中国发生。
感谢美国民主基金会把这个奖授予许志永。我相信，实现中国的民主自由事业需要无数中国人的自我觉醒和奋斗，但是它也需要整个国际社会的关注与支持。正如《世界人权宣言》所阐述的：对人类家庭所有成员的固有尊严及其平等的和不移的权利的承认，乃是世界自由、正义与和平的基础。
谢谢大家！
附英文版：
Hua Ze Speech:
Receiving the 2014 Democracy Award for Xu Zhiyong
I am honored to be here on behalf of my friend Xu Zhiyong – the recipient of this great honor. What should have been a joyous occasion, however, leaves me with a feeling of great sadness. At this very moment, Zhiyong is serving a prison sentence in China. About two weeks before the court issued the verdict which landed him in prison, his daughter was born. Not only was Zhiyong unable to see her at birth, he is also going to miss out on being there for her and watching her grow up for the next several years.
Over the last decade, Zhiyong worked tremendously hard for social justice in China, and paid a cost commensurate to his achievement. In 2003, he and two other scholars, Teng Biao and Yu Jiang, helped free hundreds of millions of migrant workers from the constant fear of arbitrary detention and getting sent back to the countryside, through limiting the unconstitutional use of police power.
Xu Zhiyong fought for the freedom of many Chinese, and lost his own freedom over and over. He has already been arrested twice, and beatings, abductions, forced disappearances and house arrest haunted him every step of the way. Zhiyong once said: Prison is the path a nation must walk toward freedom. From Liu Xiaobo to Xu Zhiyong, Chinese human rights defenders are traveling undeterred down this honorable and thorny road.
I am sorry to say that this is still happening. Starting with the crackdown on the New Citizens Movement and the latest wave of widespread criminal detention of scholars, lawyers, writers and activists, we now have some clear evidence that a larger human rights crisis is happening in China.
I want to end by thanking the National Endowment for Democracy for giving this award to Xu Zhiyong. I firmly believe that democracy and freedom in China require the awakening and hard work of countless Chinese people as well as the attention and support of the international community. As stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, “recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.”
Thank you very much!