BEIJING — Chinese artist Ai Weiwei branded the nation’s government “inhuman” on Sunday and said the Internet would bring the current Communist regime to an end, as he remained under house arrest in Beijing.
Ai, one of China’s most famous artists who currently has an exhibition at London’s Tate Modern, says he has been confined to his home to stop him from attending a gathering at his new Shanghai studio which is due to be demolished. More
(Reuters) – Prominent Chinese artist Ai Weiwei said on Saturday he had been put under house arrest in connection with an argument with the government over the planned demolition of his studio in Shanghai.
“The police have announced that I am not allowed to leave my house,” Ai told Reuters by telephone from his Beijing residence.
“It’s to do with what’s happening over my studio. They say that it has been illegally built and want to demolish it,” he said, adding he did not know when that might happen. More
Three Tibetan writers detained earlier this year by Chinese authorities have been tried on charges of “inciting activities to split the nation,” according to sources in the region.
“The three writers—Jangtse Donkho, Buddha, and Kalsang Jinpa—were tried on Oct. 28 by the Aba [in Tibetan, Ngaba] Intermediate People’s Court,” in China’s southwestern Sichuan province, said Kanyak Tsering, a Tibetan living in India and citing contacts in Tibet. More
An elaborate hero narrative that emerged in Chinese state media reports in the wake of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake has been revealed as a fabrication by a recent investigation.
A middle school teacher, Tan Qianqiu, was said to have gathered four of his students into his arms as the building crumbled, saving them, but losing his own life.
A report by the Southern Metropolis Daily in Guangzhou, however, indicates that three of those students do not exist, and that the entire story was concocted. The Daily is one of the few newspapers in China that pursues investigations sensitive to the authorities; its editors have been imprisoned for the trouble. More
Several Reporters Without Borders representatives were arrested near the Arc de Triomphe this morning in Paris after opening umbrellas bearing the words “Free Liu Xiaobo” as Chinese President Hu Jintao passed by in a motorcade on his way to deposit a wreath at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. More
BAODING, China – The more he heard about the person accused of killing his 20-year-old daughter in a drunken hit-and-run, the more terrified Chen Guangqian became.
The suspect’s father is a high-ranking police officer. In a country where fear of the police runs high, the 49-year-old farmer decided there was no point in fighting.
“I’m just a peasant,” he said in an interview. “If it’s unfair, let it be.” More
By David Bandurski, on China Media Project, Via Reporters Without Borders, Nov. 2 , 2010 -
One month ago, veteran journalist and CMP fellow Zhang Ping (张平), who writes under the penname Chang Ping (长平), was visited at the offices of Guangdong’s official Nanfang Daily by state security police who wished to have a “chat.” At roughly the same time, propaganda authorities issued an order preventing Zhang from writing editorials for Southern Weekly and Southern Metropolis Daily, both respected commercial spin-offs of Nanfang Daily where his writings have appeared for years.
Now a researcher at the Nanfang Daily Newspapers Communications Research Institute (南都传播研究院), Zhang was formerly director of the news desk at Southern Weekend and a deputy editor at Southern Metropolis Weekly. More
The Epoch Times offices in Queensland were attacked last week in an act of intimidation designed to suppress information about grave human rights abuses occurring in China.
The Epoch Times office in Queensland was shot at last week in what is understood to be an act of intimidation.
David Matas, a Canadian human rights lawyer in Brisbane to speak at an Epoch Times forum on illegal organ harvesting, says he has experienced intimidation at forums on the topic before, but was surprised at the violence involved. More
Human Rights in China (HRIC) has learned more details about the restrictions placed on Chen Guangcheng (陈光诚), the blind Shandong-based rights defender who was released from prison on September 9, 2010. Chen and his wife, Yuan Weijing (袁伟静), are not allowed to leave their home, and no one – not even Chen’s mother – has been allowed to visit the couple since early October. Currently, measures similar to martial law have been imposed by the authorities in Chen’s village, Dongshigu, Shandong Province.
Yang Lin (杨林), a Shenzhen-based rights activist, told HRIC that in late October he was blocked from entering Dongshigu when he tried to visit Chen. Villagers told him that the authorities have mobilized more than a hundred people to control the four entrances to the village and monitor Chen’s family around the clock. According to Yang, several security cameras have been installed inside and outside Chen’s home. At night, bright lights mounted outside their home, reaching their bedroom, stay lit. More
Artist, social commentator and activist Ai Weiwei has announced that in honor of the government-ordered demolition of his new Shanghai studio, he will give 10,000 river crabs (and plenty of baijiu, of course) to his supporters.
According to Ai, he was invited by the city mayor to build a studio in northern area of Shanghai, which he did, constructing a studio worth a reported US$1.1 million. However, following his recent political activities documenting the plight of lawyer Feng Zhenghu and support of Liu Xiaobo, city officials recently declared the structure illegal, condemning it to demolition. More
By JOE LAURIA, Via Wall Street Journal, Nov. 1, 2010 -
A United Nations official who has courted controversy in the past has presented an award to the military leader of the 1989 crackdown on Tiananmen Square protests ahead of an official visit to China by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.
Sha Zukang, a Chinese national who is U.N. Undersecretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, gave the award last week to Gen. Chi Haotian, a former Chinese defense minister. Gen. Chi was chief of staff of the People’s Liberation Army when he ordered the attack on the pro-democracy demonstrators. More
PARIS — The first outbreak of plague occurred in China more than 2,600 years ago before reaching Europe via Central Asia’s “Silk Road” trade route, according to a study of the disease’s DNA signature.
The findings flesh out long-held suspicions about the Chinese origins of the plague, which killed an estimated third of Europe’s population in the Middle Ages. More
Western liberals who assume they can gradually influence China are wrong – it is an expansionist power without a conscience
Kapil Komireddi， via guardian.co.uk, Saturday 23 October 2010 -
Pity the Chinese. The inhabitants of the world’s next superpower cannot search the internet or assemble or travel or speak or read or write or even reproduce without restriction. Yet in the lands where freedom is abundant, China, rather than earning well-deserved rebukes, continues to be championed as the ineluctable future. This disgraceful journey began with a liberal assumption: the west, it was claimed, is more likely to influence China by partnering with it, by giving it a prominent position inside, rather than pushing it outside, global institutions. More
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.”
Recent Comments