Shen Yun Performing Arts is the world’s premier classical Chinese dance and music company, seeks to revive the true, five-millennia-old artistic tradition of China. Here’s its shows’ schedule in June 2010:
NEW YORK – The life of a top student at Beijing’s prestigious Tsinghua University has been ravaged by a decade of rape, torture and betrayals. According to reports recently received by the Falun Dafa Information Center, the once vibrant and brilliant young woman from Shandong Province, Ms. Liu Zhimei (柳志梅), now lives in a hut, regularly wets her bed, and crouches into the corner of her room with clenched fists whenever someone approaches her. Neighbors have seen her running from her home naked and screaming.
“When Chinese authorities talk of ‘transforming’ Falun Gong practitioners, this is what they mean,” says Falun Dafa Information Center executive director Levi Browde. “They abuse and torment healthy, rational people to the point where the victim either completely gives up his or her personal beliefs and submits to the will of the Chinese Communist Party, dies from abuse, or in the case of this young woman, is driven to the edge of sanity and completely robbed of all human dignity. They drive adherents to the point where life is a living hell.”
“Liu’s case is tragic, but sadly, all too common in China…so many lives have been utterly devastated in similar ways amidst the persecution of Falun Gong.”
In 1997, Liu was admitted to Tsinghua University with the highest entrance test scores in all of Shandong Province. Upon arriving on campus, she took up Falun Gong, which was practiced by over 1,000 students and faculty at Tsinghua at the time.
After the campaign to “eradicate” Falun Gong was launched in July 1999, Liu was expelled from school because of her practice. Police detained her on several occasions over the next three years. In custody, she was repeatedly beaten and held for prolonged periods in an isolation chamber. The torture left her with head and chest injuries, a limp in her step, and several missing fingernails.
In November 2002, Liu was “sentenced” in a sham trial to 12 years at the Shandong Province Women’s Prison because of her Falun Gong practice. While at the prison camp, she was pressured by Tsinghua University staff (who would visit her there) and prison officials to become a “helper” – one who helps prison officials coerce and torture steadfast Falun Gong practitioners into renouncing their practice and embracing the CCP’s hardline against Falun Gong – and as a reward, she could return to Tsinghua University as a student.
With the prospect of returning to school before her, Liu agreed. Reports from the prison indicate Liu devised methods for “transforming” fellow Falun Gong practitioners. On occasion, the prison guards coerced her to beat Falun Gong practitioners directly. Liu also began reviewing various subjects in preparation for returning to university. That opportunity, however, never came. As the years wore on inside the prison, she realized the promises of returning to Tsinghua were not true and she fell into despair.
On November 13, 2008, Liu was finally released to her parents’ custody, a mere shadow of the person she was ten years prior.
Liu does not remember her name. She has a large welt around her belly-button and excessive bruising about her buttocks and upper legs. Her breasts sag almost to her waistline though she is not yet 30 years old and she has an extreme deformity in one of her fingers.
Liu often and randomly yells out phrases that provide a glimpse into the torture she faced while imprisoned. While a relative changes her clothing, she will sometimes grab the relative’s hand to her breast and while beating her other breast yell “They beat me here, like this, it hurt so much…” Liu often wets her bed and when approached by someone she doesn’t know, cowers into a corner with fists clenched.
Liu’s mother passed away, in grief over Liu’s imprisonment, in 2007. Liu’s father, Liu Zuorui, had been a Communist Party secretary for the local village. Neighbors report that after Liu returned home, her father often raped her and sold her to other men in the village.
In 2009, local practitioners of Falun Gong took Liu into their home and took turns watching over her. Over several months, Liu showed signs of improvement. She mumbled to herself less and less, stopped wetting her bed, and could even cook simple meals for herself.
On the morning of April 16, 2010, officers from the Bailinzhuang Town Police Station in Laiyang City raided the home of the practitioners taking care of Liu. She, along with four other Falun Gong practitioners, were taken into custody. When interrogated by police, witnesses say she turned into a “completely different person,” professing her “guilt” and extolling the police for abducting her. These witnesses say Liu’s behavior is not uncommon for someone who, after extended periods of torture and pressure, learns to tell police whatever they want to hear in order to avoid further abuse.
Upon discovering she was not mentally stable, the police returned Liu to her father’s home where she remains today.
“Back in 2001, the Washington Post ran an in-depth story on how the Chinese regime was systematically using torture and ‘reeducation’ methods to break Falun Gong practitioners,” says Browde (news). “One of the victims interviewed by the Post concluded after going through the CCP ‘transformation’ process: ‘I have seen the worst of what man can do. We really are the worst animals on Earth.’”
“Liu’s case illustrates what this victim was talking about… the complete destruction of the human spirit. That is the story of Liu Zhimei, and tragically, the story of countless other Falun Gong practitioners who suffer under the CCP’s campaign to ‘eradicate’ Falun Gong.”
Although Beijing has always denied charges of psychiatric abuse of dissidents, the National Conference of Ankang Asylums held by the Ministry of Public Security in Wuhan, Hubei Province, on May 26 and 27 has inadvertently admitted these charges.
Ankang Asylums are special psychiatric hospitals administered by the police. According to a document issued by the Ministry of Public Security on January 29, 1988, Ankang hospitals serve two functions: to maintain social order and to provide medical treatment. The document also points out that Ankang hospitals, as a special means of maintaining societal control, are an integral part of the public security services.
As of now, there are 22 Ankang hospitals in China, and the ministry has asked that at least one Ankang asylum be set up in each province, according to a report in state-run China Daily on May 29.
The recently-held National Conference pointed out that Ankang hospitals should play a more important role in social surveillance and control, and that they should work closely with public security bureaus, police stations, and criminal investigation units. It also stressed that Ankang hospitals should not admit anyone who is not mentally ill “without the approval of public security bureaus.”
People from mainland China read it as an indirect admission that Ankang hospitals can detain perfectly sane people as long as it is approved by the police. They comment that, in the past, police have incarcerated mentally healthy petitioners into psychiatric hospitals without a word. Now they send out a warning.
Persecution under cover
Zhang Ningzan, a renowned human rights lawyer told The Epoch Times that persecution, especially of political dissidents and petitioners under the guise of psychiatric treatment, occurs more often nowadays.
News broke on April 25 that a peasant named Xu Lindong from Henan Province was locked up in a mental hospital for six and a half years for supporting his neighbor Zhang Guizhi in a land dispute between Zhang and the township government. He was shackled 48 times and given electric shocks 54 times during his incarceration.
Ding Hongyun, deputy head of the Psychiatric Hospital of Luohe in Henan Province explained that Xu was incarcerated because of his insistence on visiting Beijing to lodge complaints against the local government, thereby disrupting social order, according to a China Youth Daily report.
Yangcheng Evening News reported on April 9 that Peng Baoquan and Deng Fuhua, two residents of Shiyan, a city in Hubei Province, were detained in a mental hospital because they took pictures of a protest.
According to Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch, on April 22, 2009, Pan Xiang, a citizen of Baoying County, Jiangsu Province, was kidnapped by local police and detained in a Yangzhou psychiatric hospital for nearly two months. Pan had asked the authorities to provide him with a letter allegedly written by Wen Jiabao in response to an earlier letter sent by Pan. He was forced to take medication, and as a result of an allergic reaction, developed edema in his legs.
Social control by regime
On March 11 during the 13th United Nations Human Rights Council Conference, the Falun Gong Human Rights Working Group (FLHRWG) presented the “Report on the Psychiatric Torture of Falun Gong Practitioners by the Chinese Communist Government,” which includes 1,088 cases of psychiatric tortures involving injections of nerve-damaging drugs and over 200 hospitals that have participated in the medical tortures. At least 10 practitioners died in psychiatric hospitals, with an additional eight seriously injured and who died shortly after their discharge.
The book, Psychosis: The Social Disorder of China’s Mental Disease, published by the Civil Rights and Livelihood Watch in Feb. 2009, documents 81 cases of psychiatric abuse of more than 100 mentally healthy persons, mostly petitioners in China.
Chang Boyang, a human rights lawyer in Henan Province who has taken up Xu Lindong’s case, said, “This is not an individual case but a common phenomenon that has become particularly serious in recent years.” In his judicial advice to the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, he commented that psychiatric internment is a commonplace measure adopted by local governments to persecute petitioners, and that no small number of sane citizens have suffered such abuses.
Over 100 Chinese lawyers are supporting Chang in a signed petition.
Zhang Dayan doesn’t have a picture of her late husband, Peng Gonglin. There was no family photograph at the house; that sort of thing is for people with money, not peasants, she explained.
She didn’t want to talk about Peng. “Just leave what happened alone,” Zhang said.
Peng’s older brother, who lives next door and didn’t want his name published, agreed. “Right now, it’s meaningless to talk about this matter,” he said. “My brother is dead.”
Peng’s suicide note told of his efforts to expose faulty seed distribution, the necessity of buying prostitutes for local officials and the beating he received, according to Chinese media reports. The government quickly announced that it was giving his family 200,000 yuan – almost $30,000 in hush money, decades’ worth of salary in the area.
On the road that leads to Peng’s house, a cousin of his rode by in a cart pulled by a tractor.
“We know a lot of farmers who’ve bought fake seeds in this area,” said Peng Yanmin, as the other farmers around him nodded. The government, he said, does nothing to protect them, and some suspect that those responsible for the bad seeds have connections with officials.
What did he think about his cousin’s suicide?
“I think he was helpless,” Peng Yanmin said. “There was no way out.”
He paused. The sky was getting dark; a shower was coming.
The driver started the tractor again, belching black smoke. The men rumbled away. A few minutes later the rain came, falling on the fields where Peng Gonglin once worked. (END)
Michael Sheridan and Richard Jones, The Times, May 30, 2010 -
The Three Gorges dam was so vast and sweeping a vision that nothing could stand in its way. Not the old cities of the Yangtze valley, storehouses of human toil and treasure for more than a thousand years. Not the lush, low-lying farmlands, nor the villages, nor even the pagodas and temples that graced the riverbanks.
The cries of dissenting scientists and the lamentations of more than a million Chinese people forced to leave their ancestral lands counted for nothing.
When the waters rose to 570ft last year, drowning all these things, it marked a triumph for the engineers at the top of the Chinese Communist party.
But in the past six months a sinister trail of events has unfolded from the dam all the way up the 410-mile reservoir to the metropolis of Chongqing.
It began with strange, small-scale earthquakes recorded by official monitoring stations and reported by the Chinese media.
Mysterious cracks split roads and sundered schoolhouses and apartments in newly built towns and villages on the bluffs looking down on the river.
The local government now says that 300,000 people will have to move out in addition to the 1.4m evicted to make way for the dam.
More than 50,000 residents have already been relocated owing to seismic problems that were not foreseen when the dam was built, according to the state news agency, Xinhua.
As the boats sail by, landslides can be seen from the river — some small, some big — staining the waters of the Yangtze with minerals and sediment.
Big pleasure cruisers, tramp steamers and shoals of sampans plough through waters that switch from hue to hue as their chemical composition changes.
In Badong county, midway through the Three Gorges, celebrated in Chinese painting and poetry, the citizens are troubled by a sense of foreboding.
The local government hastily moved out of a prestigious new block after experts warned that it was unsafe.
But ordinary folk and even schoolchildren have been left to fend for themselves. More than 3,000 children attend school every day in a building dating back to 1943 that officials know to be at risk of collapse. Nothing has been done to move them, supposedly because of a lack of funds.
The playground is riddled with cracks. One ominous jagged line runs down the side of the classrooms.
“The government agrees that our whole school must move,” said a worried teacher, who asked not to be named, “but so far it’s just talk.”
In a telling example of China’s glaring class differences, a group of unemployed workers live in housing provided by the state that is visibly cracking at the seams.
“What kind of dogshit government moves itself out and moves us into somewhere like this?” one of them complained.
“My house is like a fishing pond whenever it rains,” said Grandma Wang, 72. “I don’t mind for myself because I am old, but I care for my granddaughter, who is 10 and has to live in here.”
Badong is one of many places where the land and the water have interacted in ways that only a few scientists predicted before the dam was built. Their objections were overruled by the party.
But last week even the state media acknowledged that the Three Gorges area faced a “grim” situation. Officials have counted 97 significant landslides this year alone. These are linked to the worrying increase in seismic activity. ….. (more details from The Times)
By Ian McPhedran, The Courier-Mail, Australia, May 31, 2010 -
ALMOST half of Australians believe that China will become a military threat to Australia within 20 years, prompting record support for the US alliance.
According to the 2010 Lowy Institute foreign policy poll, 46 per cent of people think China will be a threat, with 19 per cent of them rating the possibility as “very likely”.
And 55 per cent of the 1001 people surveyed named China as the world’s top economic power, compared with 32 per cent for the United States.
The reality is that China is Australia’s number one trading partner, but its economy rates number four, behind the EU, US and Japan.
While 73 per cent of people regard China’s growth as good for Australia, 57 per cent said the Government had allowed too much investment from China, and 69 per cent said China’s aim was to dominate Asia.
Of those surveyed, 55 per cent wanted Australia to join with other countries to limit China’s influence.
While Australians saw America’s economic power as waning, they were still strongly supportive (86 per cent) of the Anzus Treaty and a military alliance with Uncle Sam. That was up from 63 per cent just three years ago.
Lowy Poll Project director Fergus Hanson said the results showed people were positive about China’s economic growth but fearful of its military aims.
“The two sides of the China relationship play in to the rising support for the US alliance that is evident in the poll,” Mr Hanson said……. (more details from The Courier-Mail)
CLEVELAND, Ohio— City of Cleveland Councilwoman Mamie Mitchell was very pleased to attend the Shen Yun Performing Arts show at the Playhouse Square on Saturday evening.
Speaking on behalf of the City Council at the post-show reception, Ms. Mitchell presented in the reception the Council’s resolution of recognition for Shen Yun’s arrival to their city to those present.
“This Council applauds Shen Yun on its outstanding expression of the cherished traditional values of Chinese culture, and extends the best wishes for a wonderful Cleveland experience with this very unique show,” Ms. Mitchell read from the resolution.
She explained that Shen Yun was a very “uplifting performance” and that she was pleasantly surprised.
“I never anticipated Shen Yun would be so dynamic and so uplifting,” she said.
Shen Yun, explained Ms. Mitchell, is “good for the soul,” and also informs people about the 5,000 plus years history of China.
New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts presents classical Chinese dance and music through exhilarating colorful shows for audiences around the world.
“It is really, really great,” Ms. Mitchell said, thanking the Shen Yun artists for giving her the “pleasure” to enjoy Chinese history and culture……. (more detals from The Epochtimes)
Hong Kong - Hundreds of people took part in an annual march in Hong Kong Sunday to commemorate the 21st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing.
Police estimated that about 800 people took part in the march from Victoria Park to Hong Kong’s Central Government Offices although organisers claimed the turnout was much higher.
The marchers braved torrential rain as they shouted slogans and held up banners calling on China to reverse its verdict on the pro-democracy activists who died in the crackdown on June 4, 1989.
Hong Kong, a former British colony which reverted to Chinese rule in 1989 under a ‘one country two systems’ arrangement, is the only place on Chinese soil where the killings are publicly commemorated.
Tens of thousands of people are expected to join a candlelight vigil in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park on Friday evening, the city’s main annual event to mark the massacre’s anniversary.
On Saturday, police detained 13 activists and confiscated a replica statue of the Goddess of Democracy when the activists staged an unauthorised anniversary protest at a shopping mall.
The question of how bad seeds flooded the market and escaped official detection may be a simple case of greed and incompetence.
The two owners of the firm that sold the seed, Xinxiang Wu Feng Seed Industry Co., probably could give an answer, but they’ve been taken into custody for questioning, according to company employees. Two county officials are reported to be under investigation.
A senior researcher from the seed company, Zhao Xinming, acknowledged in a phone interview that his bosses hadn’t submitted the seeds to government inspectors and had sold them under false packaging. He said that the seeds weren’t the problem, blaming bad weather and worse farming practices.
Zhao said that his company and its owners had no ties to the government.
Local officials, though, act as if they have something to hide.
On a small country lane in Deng Zhuang last week, a silver minivan pulled up and four plainclothes policemen got out and asked a McClatchy reporter for his identification. A few minutes later, a black Hyundai showed up with five government representatives in it.
There would be no more interviewing locals about Peng. With the black Hyundai leading the way and the police van following, the authorities insisted that the reporter join them at a nearby hotel for lunch.
A crystal chandelier dangled from a gold ceiling in a private dining room. The officials ordered one course after the other – Beijing duck, a delicate mushroom soup, vegetables plucked from the mountains, ox tripe and sea plants, a large fish, spices and sweets – costing more than most villagers make in a month.
A man who was introduced as Tian Zhong of the Chinese Communist Party propaganda department said that one shouldn’t listen to what the farmers said, that they didn’t know anything. In fact, Peng’s own wife probably didn’t even know what her husband’s gender was, Tian said to guffaws at the table as the officials gorged themselves on more than a dozen dishes brought to the table by a pretty young waitress.
“He’s just a farmer,” Tian said of Peng, as he picked food from his teeth. “He doesn’t know what he was talking about.”
After the conversation ended, a county official confided that Tian’s real first name was Dong, not Zhong. He didn’t work for the propaganda department; he was the deputy director of the county’s agricultural bureau.
The reporter then was escorted back to the Zhumadian city limits. (to be cont’d)
By John Boudreau, The Mercury News, U.S. 05/29/2010 -
SHANGHAI — When blogger Isaac Mao recently announced online an upcoming talk by a Beijing writer whose work is banned by the government, police showed up at his door at night to “convince” him to cancel the event, which he eventually agreed to do. But just to be sure, authorities turned off the electricity at the planned meeting space and barred the doors.
Chinese officials say such actions are aimed at creating “social harmony.” In the sarcastic lexicon of Chinese netizens, Mao was “harmonized” that April evening.
“They won’t arrest you to stop you, but they pressure you,” said Mao, whose website is blocked by the government. “They pressured the owners of this space and they threatened to close it down. Many people worry about losing their jobs. That’s why many people self-censor themselves.”
With more than 400 million Chinese now online — and 100 million more expected to join them by the end of the year — netizens are increasingly bumping against the limits of expression imposed by officials. Google’s recent decision to stop censoring its search site highlighted the tension between those who want an unfettered Internet and government efforts to suppress “unhealthy” and “subversive” activity. And it revealed to many Chinese how far the government will go to block certain information, Mao said.
China’s leadership views the Internet as an integral part of economic growth, but makes no apologies for censorship efforts so formidable they’ve been dubbed the Great Firewall of China. President Hu Jintao has said the stability of the nation depends on the government’s ability to “cope” with the Internet.
The government is so determined to control public opinion that it hires bloggers — dubbed the “50-cent army” because of what they are paid per post — to promote its views online. It also backs censorship-friendly social networking sites. And officials are considering a plan to require Internet users to reveal their identity before commenting in public forums.
When “very allergic topics spread quickly” and the government can’t block every Internet posting about them, officials issue orders banning entire topics, pressuring companies that host discussion boards and blogs to fall in line, said tech blogger Hong Bo, who has received government warnings to stop writing on sensitive issues, such as Google’s recent defiance of censorship regulations.
It’s not uncommon for young people to alert friends through mobile phone text messages to blog posts they have written — and the importance of reading them quickly before they are blocked, said Lisa Li, founder of China Youthology, which examines the attitudes and beliefs of those 15 to 25……. (more details from The Mercury News)
WRITING ON THE WALL- “Illegal petitioners will be severely punished”
About 45 miles up the road from the poverty of Deng Zhuang, banners advertise “elegant living” and “baroque flooring” in clusters of glimmering new buildings in the city of Zhumadian. The rolling wheat fields that ring the city are crossed by miles of elevated train tracks, part of China’s $100 billion-plus investment in a high-speed rail system that’s being pounded into shape.
Few in the West have heard of the surrounding province of Henan, but its population is expected to reach 100 million this year, roughly one-third that of the United States.
One large sign for a Zhumadian construction project reads in English: “Control the future Control the world.”
It’s a postcard from a nation hustling toward greatness.
Drive south toward Deng Zhuang, and the signs begin to change. Red and white banners painted on walls proclaim: “Implement the central government’s spirit. Fight against illegal petitions.”
In hamlets farther on, slogans streaked across the sides of buildings warn: “Illegal petitioners will be severely punished.”
The meaning is clear: Those who speak against the government are dealt with harshly.
As word spread this past year about failed rice crops in the region around Zhumadian, most locals remained silent. Thousands of acres of dry rice fields – those planted with seeds that don’t need as much water as traditional paddies – yielded little or no harvest, according to a March publication overseen by a federal government agricultural inspection agency.
The seed came from North Henan, mislabeled as a more costly variety and ill-suited for the local climate and soil, said Tong Junhua, vice director of the Zhumadian seed station. Had the weather been perfect, at least some rice would have grown, but heavy rains wiped out the inferior seeds.
The price difference between the varieties was minimal, Tong said.
“People are driven by greed, even if it’s just a little money,” he said. “They thought nothing would go wrong and figured why not.”
Why didn’t agricultural or local officials test the seeds, as they are required to do by law?
“I don’t know; I’m not clear why the relevant departments didn’t do their job,” Tong said, laughing but looking exasperated. (to be cont’d)
By TOM LASSETER, McClatchy Newspapers, U.S, May. 30, 2010 -
DENG ZHUANG, China — Peng Gonglin wasn’t an important man. He lived in a bare concrete house in a small village where women stoop beside ponds to scrub clothes in buckets and the men often harvest crops by hand.
When his rice fields came up empty last October, Peng had no influence and little cash. The 43-year-old farmer had spent almost all of his family’s savings and borrowed more to lease the land and buy seeds.
County experts in the central province of Henan tested the seeds he’d planted and determined that he’d been sold inferior goods. Peng begged for financial or legal help from the local agricultural bureau and its county seed station.
He took what remained of his family’s money and tried to bribe two local officials to intervene. They accepted the meals, massages and prostitutes, but they did nothing in return, according to a letter he later wrote.
Finally, on March 29 he returned to the county seed station to plead once more. Men there beat Peng about the head until he went home, humiliated.
Facing financial ruin, he carried out one last act of protest. Early the next morning, Peng Gonglin’s body was found hanging at the seed station.
The story of Peng’s lonely suicide reveals the pitfalls beneath the glossy surface of China’s booming economy. Ordinary Chinese who’ve been cheated or defrauded, especially in rural areas, find themselves trapped in neo-feudal conditions with no protection beyond the mercy of corrupt officials.
Outsiders are sometimes baffled by the emphasis Chinese leaders put on order and harmony, and their crushing response to any signs of unrest. From the turmoil in a village such as Deng Zhuang, though, it’s clear that the nation sits uneasily on deep social fault lines.
In the aftermath of more than a half-dozen attacks at schools across China during the past two months, in which men walked into classrooms and hacked small children with hammers or knives, many Chinese experts pointed to the lack of social safety valves and legal means of venting frustration.
“People at the bottom of the social ladder … are deprived of their rights to speak out, of their rights to appeal and petition,” said Hu Xingdou, an economics professor at the Beijing University of Technology who specializes in issues of rural development.
As one Chinese lawyer wrote in an online essay last month, “The lack of social justice makes people hate government officials. Once these burdens accumulate beyond people’s psychological endurance . . . they tend to act in an extreme way, whether to retaliate against society or to choose to commit suicide.” (to be cont’d)
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Looking for Food from a Heap of Rubble
In the afternoon, we dug out some food from a heap of rubble. Some people even robbed the supermarket and small merchants from the city. A friend of mine from Xining called and asked me about the earthquake. I told him that we had nothing to eat. However, food was a small matter. More serious, was the lack of drinking water. Everyone was very thirsty including the patients. Some people got polluted river water and boiled it for drinking after the water was somewhat settled. We drank very little and gave most of the water to the patients.
The media said that food was not a problem. And that was a lie. We did not see food or water. Some people were lucky enough to rob a truck but most of us had nothing. All we had was what we dug out from the rubble.
The presence of Special Police Forces
At night, there were many special police officers present to direct traffic. The traffic started to move at 12:00pm but the whole day was wasted due to the traffic jams. Because of that, no victims had been rescued.
My students were still under a building. And many people were under collapsed buildings. When I went to the intersection again, I saw some places that had military units and rescue teams, but very few people. The team that was on top of a building was asked to get off by police declaring that a high level official was coming. Soon the roads were cleared. An hour later, Premier Wen Jiabao came. At that point the rescue operation started to move slowly.
The Coming of Premier Wen Jiabao
On May 16, the third day after the earthquake, at 7:00am the special police force was there to watch the roads and make sure no more traffic jams developed. But where were they yesterday when the traffic jam blocked the roads for an entire day? They only showed up because the the premier had arrived.
My students have been buried for two days. But we are too weak to help and so are many of their parents.
I won’t show the pictures and the video. I don’t want to lose my job. Who knows, they may even put me in jail. My family needs me now more than ever. (End)
At 2:00am I rode my motorcycle back to town. In the city I saw the rescue team still working to save people, but I was angry at the fact that only a few people were working, while a lot of rescue team members spent their time chatting and laughing. The locals were telling me, “They were on the building since noon hour. And now it is night and nothing has changed.” They are not saving people but doing a show of saving people.
In addition, many statements made were false. One reporter was telling a lie right in front of us: She said that now it is 2:00am and the rescue team is still working on saving people. Another reporter from a different TV station said that now it is 3am and the rescue team is still working tirelessly to save people. That is a big fat lie! The so-called rescue team, a total less than 10 people, has been on top of a building since lunch hour and has not moved a single stone. The victims under the building were calling for help when suddenly a fire started from inside the building and then was followed by silence. The rescue team did not even try to extinguish the fire!
They were here talking about saving people and did not go anywhere else. My students were all under the collapsed building, but they did not go there. However they said that they went. Honestly, we did not have any rescue team at all.
Plenty of Food and Water for the Rescue Teams but not for the Victims
On May 15, the rescue team did not save any victims. I saw them standing on the same building. At other places, only the locals were saving their relatives or friends. When I rode my motorcycle around the city to look for food, water, tents and quilts, I asked many police for these items. But the police officers all said they had nothing to give away. By then, it was almost noon and the roads were filled with vehicles from adjacent counties. The cars and trucks were loaded with food, tents etc,. Unfortunately, they were all for private usage.
The rescue team stationed above the race track had plenty of food and water. The people from the expedition team, or other rescue teams from certain units, also stayed at the stadium and had plenty food and water. Many families here did not have a tent to sleep in. After I came back from scouting, I found many families were putting up tents. I asked them where they got their tents. They said that they robbed others. By then the street was blocked with vehicles and all the goods on the pickups and trucks were being taken.
Later on, I rode the motorcycle around, but I did not see any more trucks with goods because of the traffic jam. Nothing was moving.(to be cont’d)
Shen Yun’s second performance at Melbourne’s State Theatre, has once again uplifted audience members.
Pat La Manna was impressed by the skill and the professionalism of the dancers.
[Pat La Manna, Philanthropist/Entrepreneur]:
“First class, I’ve never ever seen anything like that before, truly!, I don’t think I ever will again.”
Enthusiastic about the whole show, he felt a sense of joy surrounding the dancers.
[Pat La Manna, Philanthropist/Entrepreneur]:
“Everything, absolutely everything, and the scenery and the costumes and the way they look – the happy lot … I recommend it to everybody to come and see the show. It’s something different that will probably be years before you see a show like this again.” ….. (more details from NTD TV)
MELBOURNE, Australia– Former ballerina Kristine Whorlaw had not heard of the Shen Yun Performing Arts but now that she has seen one of its shows, her memories gleaned will be hard to forget. She saw the company at Melbourne’s Arts Centre State Theatre on May 29. “I thought it was absolutely wonderful. I was stunned, quite frankly,” Ms. Whorlaw said. “The dancing was amazing, quite marvellous, really. I think the fluidity of the movement of the female dancers, mixed with the vibrant acrobatics of the male dancers… oh, the coordination was just fantastic. I don’t know who does the getting them all together and all the training, but I think they deserve a medal.”
Even more than the technical quality, the emotional content spoke to her.
Ms. Whorlaw said Shen Yun had “absolutely world class dancers,” while her husband, Mr. Trousdale, mused about the depth of the show he couldn’t quite pinpoint. “It was a message that was … it was a subtle message, but I think it was given with a tremendous amount of feeling and sincerity. That’s what I felt. It wasn’t really pushing the theme, or the idea, but the message came out clearly, very simply, and it was very nicely done.”
His wife agreed, saying the feeling “was extremely sincere.”
“I think the audience would have been impressed by that. And I think the message gave the impression that the members of the company were very sincere and dedicated, and really believed in what they’re doing and in their own personal beliefs.”
Ms. Whorlaw said she could see how Chinese classical dance influenced other dance forms, saying she was “extremely impressed” with not only the emotional depiction of the different stories, but also the technique, and choreography.”
Story-based dances adapted from beloved Chinese legends, folkloric traditions and modern day stories of astounding courage, are one of the trademarks of Shen Yun.
“I had to sit upright in my chair, as my husband will tell you, and look at some of the choreography, because as he said, it had great fluidity and agility and ease. So I think it was extremely impressive.”…… (more details from The Epochtimes)
CLEVELAND, Ohio— City of Cleveland Mayor Frank G. Jackson more than just welcomed Shen Yun Performing Arts to his fine city. He went a step further and publicly proclaimed May 29, 2010 as “Shen Yun Performing Arts Day” in paying homage to the New York-based company.
Shen Yun Performing Arts International Company is scheduled to premier this evening at Cleveland’s Playhouse Square for one show only.
Mr. Jackson was joined by the Mayor of the City of Westlake, Dennis M. Clough, Mayor of Beachwood, Merle S. Gorden and the City of Cleveland’s Council President Martin J. Sweeney in publicly delaring recognition of Shen Yun Performing Arts day.
“It draws on the expression of Chinese classical performance to showcase true traditional Chinese culture, devoid of any elements of Chinese communist culture,” Mr. Jackson said.
Shen Yun is one of three companies currently scheduled to appear on its 2010 World Tour in more than 100 cities performing some 400 shows. The two other companies are touring in Europe and in Australia.
Mr. Jackson appreciated that Shen Yun was brought to Cleveland by the Ohio Oriental Culture Association and Ohio Falun Dafa Association, endorsed by his colleague Mr. Clough “for contributing to our area’s reputation as a cultural center.”
Mr. Clough wished the company “much success in the future as they continue to bring the very best of traditional Chinese culture to our community,” he said.
Shen Yun comprises a group of leading artists who share in a vision of cultural renewal bringing together over 100 of the world’s foremost classically-trained Chinese dancers, choreographers, musicians, vocalists and an orchestra that blends both Western and Chinese instruments using only original composition.
A resolution was passed from the Cleveland city council members to support both mayors in their decision to proclaim May 29 as Shen Yun Performing Arts day.
“Cleveland is extremely honored to be among those cities hosting this phenomenal show which represents a true renaissance of classical Chinese culture,” the council president, Mr. Sweeney said.
Shen Yun has already graced many of the world’s greatest stages, including New York’s Radio City Music Hall, London’s Royal Festival Hall, Washington D.C.’s Kennedy Center, and Paris’ Le Palais de Congrès.
United States Senator Sherrod Brown welcomed Shen Yun to Cleveland in a letter.
“This evening’s performance promises to be an unforgettable tribute to the 5,000-year history of Chinese culture,” Mr. Brown said.
He commended both the Cultural and Falun Dafa associations “for bringing this important cultural event filled with music and dance to Cleveland to celebrate Chinese culture as well as entertain, educate, and enrich the audience.
“Please accept my best wishes for an extraordinary evening,” Sen. Brown concluded.
By Malcolm Moore in Shanghai, telegraph.co.uk, May 27, 2010 -
While Apple has risen to become the world’s largest technology firm, Foxconn, the maker of almost all of its devices, appears to have broken under the pressure of keeping up with new orders.
Two more workers attempted to commit suicide on Thursday by jumping from the top of dormitory buildings at its giant Longhua factory, according to sources at the site. Both survived and are currently hospitalised.
On Wednesday night, just hours after the chairman of Foxconn assured hundreds of reporters that the plant was under control, a 23-year-old man killed himself.
So far, at least 16 people have jumped from high buildings at the factory so far this year, with 12 deaths. A further 20 people were stopped by the company before they could attempt to kill themselves.
The hysteria at Longhua, where between 300,000 and 400,000 employees eat, work and sleep, has grown to such a pitch that workers have twisted Foxconn’s Chinese name so that it now sounds like: “Run to your Death”.
Terry Gou, the 59-year-old billionaire who founded the company, yesterday turned his plane around on the way to Taiwan to return to the plant. In a meeting with his senior management, Mr Gou allegedly said that he would not now leave the factory until the suicides stop.
In addition, the company is said to be considering a radical plan to move 60,000 people, or 20pc of its workforce at Longhua, to other sites in western China to be “closer to their homes” in the hope that this will calm the situation.
Inside the facility, workers were busily stringing nets between dormitory buildings to try to catch any further jumpers. “It is a clumsy solution, but it may save lives,” said Mr Gou. The company, which also makes dozens of electronic goods for the likes of Dell, Sony and HP, is also now blocking windows and locking doors to roofs and balconies.
An undercover team of seven Chinese investigators infiltrated the Longhua plant one week ago and told The Daily Telegraph that the trigger for the mass suicides is “inside the factory” rather than any personal or social impetus.
“The facilities at Foxconn are fine, but the management is poor,” revealed Zhu Guangbing, who organised the investigation. “Hundreds of people work in the workshops but they are not allowed to talk to each other. If you talk, you get a black mark in your record and you get shouted at by your manager. You can also be fined.”
He said Foxconn had lost tens of thousands of workers during the financial crisis and had been stretched to the breaking point by the volume of new orders, as products such as the iPad enjoyed monumental success.
“The machines keep moving and the staff have to keep up. The workers need practice to become really efficient, and with a heavy churn of new staff, they cannot adapt. In the past three months, the factory has been losing 50,000 staff a month because workers are burning out,” he said. “Even the engineers and the training staff have had to man the production line,” he added.
“Because Foxconn has had a large number of big orders, the workers are reduced to repeating exactly the same hand movement for months on end.
The workers we have spoken to say that their hands continue to twitch at night, or that when they are walking down the street they cannot help but mimic the motion. They are never able to relax their minds,” he said.
Overtime last year was an average of 120 hours per month per worker, bring their weekly hours up to 70 hours, above the maximum level set by Apple in its guidelines to suppliers. In the wake of the suicides, the company has now reduced the time to 80 hours per month, and is now considering raising its basic wage of 900 yuan (£90) a month by between 50pc and 100pc.
Longhua lies 30 minutes from the southern city of Shenzhen and is ringed with heavy security. Its sheer size is intimidating. “I once went to the west gate rather than the south gate,” said one contractor. “I had to drive around to the right entrance and it took half-an-hour”.
Inside, workers get free meals and accommodation in giant tower blocks. There is a complimentary bus and free laundry. Touch-screen computers around the campus allow each worker to check his current status – how much he has earned that month and how many hours he has worked.
There are free swimming pools, and tennis courts and 500 LED screens beam out exercise programmes across the site, as well as bulletins from Foxconn TV. Clubs organised by the company offer chess, calligraphy, mountain climbing or fishing.
Foxconn says that 8,000 people a day apply for jobs at its factory, drawn by the company’s blue-chip reputation, its prompt payment of wages and benefits and its training programme.
However, workers complained that they simply did not have the time to enjoy the facilities on offer. “The workers we spoke to said they never used the swimming pools, and anyway there are only two among the 300,000 workers, and they are said to be quite dirty,” said Mr Zhu.
Lin Fengxiang, a 23-year-old villager from Maoming, Guangdong, said: “I know why all those people jumped. In here, nobody gives a damn about you. Too bad I’ve already got one foot on this boat. It’s hard to get off now.”
Tighten the screws. That’s the Chinese government’s response to growing corporate discontent with China’s pervasive electronic censorship and surveillance system. Barely a month since Google pulled the plug on its China-based search engine, the Chinese government started demanding deeper corporate complicity with China’s security agencies.
On April 29 the Chinese government moved to impose a wider role for Internet and telecom firms in the country’s pervasive censorship and surveillance apparatus when China’s National People’s Congress Standing Committee approved an amendment to the revised draft Law of Guarding State Secrets, which will require Internet and telecom network operators to proactively monitor their networks for any content thatfalls within the definition of “state secrets.”
The problem is, almost anything can fall into that basket, and it is entirely at the whim of censoring officials what does. Although the draft revised law must be approved at the annual meeting of China’s legislature, it constitutes a palpable threat to Internet and telecom companies already leery of requirements to deepen their links with China’s security agencies.
The Chinese government has long classified state secrets extremely broadly, including information that is related to “economic and social development,” as well as a catch-all “other matters” category. National and local officials decide whether published materials are a state secret, and those determinations cannot be legally challenged. The amendment explicitly requires Internet and telecom operators to “cooperate with public security organs, state security agencies [and] prosecutors” on suspected cases of state secrets transmission and to cease that transmission, record it as evidence and then delete it from the public domain.
The amendment spotlights fresh concerns about the ethical obligations of China’s remaining foreign Internet search engine operators, including Yahoo ( YHOO - news - people ) and Microsoft ( MSFT - news - people ). Unlike Google ( GOOG - news - people ), which ended its five years of complicity with Chinese censors in March 2010, those two firms continue to bend to official dictates to censor any searches on topics the Chinese government categorizes as “sensitive.” Those topics range from information about the June 1989 Tiananmen Massacre, Tibetan independence and the banned Falun Gong spiritual group to Chinese-language searches about China’s President Hu Jintao. …… (more details from The Forbes)
I am a school teacher and came to Xining, the capital of Qinhai Province, yesterday. I have witnessed the earthquake in Yushu.
At 5 am of May 14, while I was asleep, my bed started to shake, and then it shook so heavily that it almost threw me to the floor. I was startled. What was going on? Could this be an earthquake? I waited for a while and it became quiet. It was still dark out and no human voices or dogs barking could be heard. I fell asleep again because I was so tired. In my heart, I knew something was not right. I got up, put on my clothes and had a few puffs of my cigarette. Suddenly I was thrown onto the floor by the earthquake. I jumped up to open the door but could not. I rushed to the window, broke the window pane with a hammer and jumped into the yard. I could not see anything because of the thick dust.
Earthquake in Yushu—not like the reporting on TV
I am giving my first hand account of what happened during the earthquake. First of all, I want to clarify that the earthquake was not like what was reported on TV: It is not true that very few people died; it is not true that they were working hard to dig out the victims; it is not true that people had plenty of food and water; it is not true that they worked till midnight to save the victims. They are telling lies and the rescue operation only started slowly after Premier Wen Jiabao went there.
Many people were buried when the earthquake hit Yushu. Unlike the reporting on TV, only 1/3 of houses collapsed instead of 85%. But all the mud houses collapsed. What appeared on TV were houses in the center of the city.
At least 3,000 people died, that was what I saw. Many families were buried entirely and no one paid any attention to those people and no one recorded that either. I had witnessed at least 3,000 victims. Not everything in the report was true; some were made up stories.
No Food, No Water, No Help
When the earthquake hit, the three story dorm totally collapsed and all the students were buried. We started to dig them out but could not move the concrete rubble. We found the rescue team but they did not come until afternoon. When they did arrive, they only came with one forklift truck and did nothing. After sundown, not a single person was rescued.
Our neighboring families were buried, but we did not have time to help them. For two days, we were hurrying to dig out our own relatives, with hand shovels and wooden poles. On TV, they said that more than 6,000 people were saved. But the rescue team dug out very few people, mostly we dug out our relatives.
We put the victims on the horse race track. Because we used up all the medical supplies from school, we put the victims together. Some of them, we put on the trucks and covered them with quilts. At night, we found some wood pieces from the collapsed houses and burned them to keep warm. (to be cont’d)
HONG KONG— Authorities in the southern Chinese city of Changsha snatched the dead body of a 56-year-old man who hanged himself in protest at being evicted from his home to make way for a major property development, residents said.
“A vehicle came from the undertaker’s to take the dead body away, but the [relatives] refused,” said a resident of Changsha’s Rongwan township surnamed Ding.
“At this point there were a lot of police on the scene, some in camouflage, probably about 200 of them in all,” she said.
“Several of them dragged the body out, then about seven or eight of them lifted it into the vehicle.”
She said relatives had erected a marquee in the street to hold a funeral rite for Huang Jianhua, a laid-off worker who lived in accommodations belonging to the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China branch at No. 1 Baishaye Road.
Huang, 56, was found dead by a neighbor Friday, with a suicide note in his pocket saying he had been forced to sign an eviction agreement against his will.
The owner of a nearby business surnamed Xu was also at the scene.
“There were about 200 people: police, local community officials, and municipal management office in charge of the evictions,” Xu said.
“They put the body into a vehicle and took it to the undertaker’s.”
“There were a lot of onlookers as well … some people were taking photos on their cell phones and the police grabbed them immediately and wouldn’t let them do that,” he said.
Police confirm suicide
“There were a couple of elderly people I guessed were his parents. The old lady was lifted into the vehicle by four of five people.”
A police officer at the nearby Wangyuehu police station confirmed the suicide.
“Yes,” he said, when asked if an evictee had hanged himself, but declined to give further details.
A relative of Huang’s, surnamed Liu, confirmed that there was a suicide note in which Huang expressed his deep dissatisfaction with the eviction agreement.
“We are still in discussions about this, but so far there hasn’t been any result. We have reached an initial agreement and the body has been taken to the undertaker’s,” Liu said.
An employee who answered the phone at the Changsha municipal government offices denied the suicide and the tussle over Huang’s remains, but she confirmed the large police presence in the area……. (more details from Radio Free Asia)
Falun Dafa Information Center, May 26, 2010 -
(Excerpt)
In August 2009, then-15-year-old (Qu) Jianguo (曲建国) was diagnosed with bone cancer. The boy, a resident of Laishui County in Hebei Province, had been experiencing severe pain in his legs for several weeks. As the pain intensified, his family took him to multiple local doctors. Finally, Jianguo sought help at the Jishuitan Hospital in nearby Beijing where he was diagnosed. The doctors said his condition would likely be fatal.
Jianguo was sent to the Beijing Shuili hospital to undergo chemotherapy. “Chemotherapy made me feel very bad,” wrote Jianguo in an article posted on the overseas Minghui.org website in February 2010. “All my hair fell out, and I was often nauseated and unable to eat anything. I was in pain all the time. I began to understand what it meant when people say they’d rather die than live.”
At a cost of over 150,000 Yuan, Jianguo’s family reportedly exhausted their savings to pay for the chemotherapy. His father took up a collection from their town, and even Jianguo’s school pitched in to help with the costs. But in October 2009, the money ran out. Jianguo was sent home, and his cancer persisted.
Two of Jianguo’s great aunts were practitioners of Falun Gong, however, and suggested that he look into the practice. They gave him Falun Gong books and taught him the exercise movements, and soon Jianguo was performing them diligently.
“I strictly conducted myself according to [Falun] Dafa’s principles, and my illness improved day by day,” wrote Jianguo in his online article. “I gradually became free of pain in my legs. I dared not believe that Dafa could be so powerful. I was a dying person, but I miraculously recovered. Dafa saved my life.”
Jianguo’s experience is not uncommon. Meditation, spiritual, and energy practices are widely acknowledged in China and elsewhere to bring health benefits. Specifically, in the case of Falun Gong, surveys conducted among Chinese adherents in the late 1990s and subsequent anecdotal evidence testify to widespread reports of improved health, balance, and a more positive worldview.
So well known were Falun Gong’s health benefits in China prior to the persecution’s launch in July 1999 that five months earlier, the director of China’s State Sports Commission Wu Shaozu declared of Falun Gong: “If 100 million people are practicing it, that’s 100 billion Yuan saved per year in medical fees. Premier Zhu Rongji is very happy about that.”
By March, 2010, Jianguo, now 16, wrote that the pain in his legs had disappeared. He was walking normally, and was preparing to go to back to school for the first time in months. Jianguo sent his story to an overseas Falun Gong website, Minghui.org, stating his desire to let other Chinese people know how much he had benefited from the practice. “Disregard the [Chinese Communist Party]‘s lies, and know that Falun Dafa is good!” he wrote.
News of Jianguo’s recovery spread quickly through his hometown. Chinese officials worried his story was undermining a decade of official propaganda which sought to portray Falun Gong as nefarious and deserving of brutal suppression.
Authorities at the nearby Baoding City 610 Office took note of Jianguo’s story online and ordered the Laishui County 610 Office, police, and school administrators to launch an investigation into Jianguo’s case, reportedly looking for anything that could be used to discredit his account.
“That security forces would launch such an investigation provides a telling glimpse into the Chinese regime’s attitude toward the welfare of ordinary citizens,” says Zhang. “In most societies, when a young boy overcomes a lethal disease, it is a cause for celebration, and rightfully so. In today’s China, however, the authorities’ first reaction is to mobilize three different organizations to intimidate the boy’s family and try to discredit his story.”
- Falun Dafa Information Center
2. Large wave of resignation from the Chinese Communist Party is happening
More than 100 million Chinese have quit the CCP till Oct. 2011, people are continue quitting at a rate of 50,000 to 70,000 per day.
- The Tuidang Movement Milestone: 100 Million Chinese Hearts Changed
10.Videos: Tiananmen Square Massacre - June. 4, 1989
Thousands of students shot to death by tanks and soldiers on Tiananmen square in capital city Beijing in 1989
Reporters Without Borders said in it’s 2005 special report titled “Xinhua: the world’s biggest propaganda agency”, that “Xinhua remains the voice of the sole party”, “particularly during the SARS epidemic, Xinhua has for last few months been putting out news reports embarrassing to the government, but they are designed to fool the international community, since they are not published in Chinese.”
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