Who Opposes Falun Gong’s Persecution in China?

Nearly 12 years, tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners have been brutally persecuted, which the world’s community widely condemns. Meanwhile many top officials in the Chinese regime also openly oppose the persecution on Falun Gong. They feel that it is a huge disaster for the Chinese and call for an immediate end to the persecution as well as holding Jiang Zemin legally accountable.

According to incomplete data, 3,400 Falun Gong practitioners were persecuted to death since 1999. More than half of them were elderly and women. Tens of thousands of practitioners have been treated inhumanely, including over 40 forms of torture, drugs destructive to the central nervous system, alive organ harvesting, forced labor camps and brainwashing.

Confucius Replaced by Sun Yat-sen on Tiananmen Square

Confucius statue removal from Tiananmen Square is still a hot topic, but on April 27,there appeared the portrait of Sun Yat-sen . Why the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) suddenly replaced Confucius statue with Sun Yat-sen portrait? What is the CCP actually doing?

In the dawn of April 27, Sun Yat-sen’s portrait was noticed standing on Tiananmen Square. Many tourists take pictures with it. Some netizens believe this is to commemorate the 1911 Revolution. Mainland media reports that the portrait will be displayed until the end of “May 1″ holidays. This is regular for May 1 and October 1 holidays.

Human Rights Lawyer Li Fangping Abducted in Beijing, Whereabouts Unknown

(Chinese Human Rights Defenders, April 29, 2011) Around 5 pm local time on April 29, Beijing-based human rights lawyer Li Fangping (李方平) was kidnapped by unidentified individuals outside the offices of the health rights NGO Beijing Yirenping Center, of which he is a legal advisor. Li was able to speak briefly with his wife, telling her, “I may be gone for a period of time… can’t talk more.” Further efforts to contact him have been unsuccessful, and his whereabouts are unknown.

Family Members Beaten by Prison Security Agents to Cover Up the Deaths of three Falun Gong Detainees in Northeast China

New York– Since news emerged last month of three Falun Gong detainees being killed in custody at a prison in northeast China, family members of the victims and others prisoners of conscience have been harassed and beaten, as the authorities seek to cover up the deaths.

Torture and abuse intensified at Jiamusi Prison in Heilongjiang province in February after personnel received orders in early 2011 to increase the “transformation rate” among Falun Gong practitioners held at the camp. The orders were issued as part of a nationwide three-year Communist Party campaign to reinvigorate transformation efforts (CECC analysis).

Do Not Politicize a Church that is Focused Only on Matters of Faith- Beijing Shouwang house churches’s Response to Global Times’ Commentary

Translated by China Aid Association-

Do Not Politicize a Church that is Focused Only on Matters of Faith

The Global Times newspaper (hereafter, the Times) on April 26 ran a commentary with the headline “Some Churches Should Avoid Becoming Politicized” (hereafter, the text), in which it comments on the recent events in Beijing related to Shouwang Church’s outdoor worship, and just as the title says, it was a well-intentioned reminder to Shouwang. This is the only formal Chinese reporting we have seen in the domestic media of Shouwang Church’s outdoor worship. Therefore, it is necessary that we, as the party involved, provide some clarifications and explanations regarding some of the issues raised in this commentary, so that readers can have a more comprehensive and detailed understanding of this incident.

US raps China for ‘serious backsliding’ on human rights

BEIJING (AFP)— A US envoy accused China of “serious backsliding” on human rights Thursday following talks on the issue that were held as Beijing carries out a severe crackdown on government critics.

Assistant Secretary of State Michael Posner also indicated China rebuffed US appeals to soften the crackdown and resolve the cases of prominent artist Ai Weiwei and other detained activists and dissidents.

“In recent weeks we have seen a serious backsliding on human rights and the discussion of these negative trends dominated the human rights dialogue over the past few days,” Posner told reporters.

“Chairman Mao’s Purgatory” – The Reality

Du Bin, a New York Times』 signed reporter, published in Hong Kong a new book, called “Chairman Mao』s Purgatory”. . This book is about the Great Leap Forward and has 130,000 characters and over 150 valuable pictures.

Du Bin said: “』Chairman Mao』s purgatory』 reflects all those ridiculous and miserable years.”

This book in the form of chronicle, records Mao』s speech within the party, agricultural officials』 private diaries, the behavior of local authorities, letters from common people to the Central Party, newly revealed secret documents, witnesses』 memories. The book recalls the dark age when tens of millions of Chinese people starved to death, with historical posters, farmer paintings, photos, art drawings, newspaper and magazines』 pictures, serving the politics during the Great Leap Forward.

Torture Fears for Chinese Detainees

As U.S. officials head to China for a dialogue on human rights, a Chinese rights group has warned that 17 people—including artist Ai Weiwei—who are being held incommunicado in a recent crackdown on dissent are at risk of being tortured.

“They are at high risk of torture or other mistreatment while held illegally incommunicado,” the China Human Right Defenders (CHRD) group said in a statement on its website.

Top of the list was prominent artist and social critic Ai, whose family has had no official word on his whereabouts after he was detained at a Beijing airport on April 3.

Persecution in China Continues 12 Years After 10,000-Strong Appeal

In Europe, Asia and the United States over the weekend, Falun Gong practitioners marked the 12th anniversary of the largest peaceful demonstration in China in 20 years. That demonstration, on April 25, 1999, was followed three months later by a violent crackdown—when the Chinese Communist Party launched a campaign to arrest and torture Falun Gong practitioners.

On Saturday, practitioners like Xu Yan in Brussels used the anniversary to call for an end to the ongoing persecution.

The Persecution Before the Persecution, in China

On April 25, 1999, the most “serious political incident” since 1989 occurred in China. Over 10,000 practitioners of Falun Gong, a spiritual practice, had quietly gathered on the streets of Beijing and silently stood and sat from morning to night, seeking to be allowed to practice their faith free from harassment.

The incident is often seen as the catalyst to what happened next: a nationwide Cultural Revolution-style persecution featuring incessant propaganda, cruel violence, labor camps, and thought reeducation campaigns that continues to this day. But a look at the three years that preceded that incident shows that rather than being the catalyst to the persecution, it was practitioners’ last-ditch effort to head off what hardliners inside the Communist Party had been hatching since 1996.

Dozens Chinese Detained At Easter: Unofficial Christian church members are targeted in the latest clampdown

Authorities in the Chinese capital have detained dozens of members of an unofficial Christian group as they tried to attend an outdoor Easter service.

At least 30 worshippers from the unregistered Shouwang church were held by police on Sunday in Beijing’s western district of Zhongguancun as they showed up for the service, according to U.S.-based Christian rights group ChinaAid.

“There were more than 1,000 police officers in Zhongguancun [on Sunday],” ChinaAid founder Bob Fu said.

documentory video: Who’s Afraid of Ai Weiwei

Al Jazeera: Arabs’ 100,000 Questions for Chinese Media

Ezzat Shahrour, Chief correspondent of Al-Jazeera’s Arabic in Beijing, speaks about the Chinese media in his recent Chinese blog post “The Arab People Have 100,000 Questios for Chinese Media,” which triggered heated discussion on China’s state-run media and itscredibility.

Shahrour strongly criticizes in his post the lopsided coverage of the Chinese media on the uprisings in the Arabic world, calling it “intentional misreading of the popular will.”

Shahrour writes: “The current revolution in the Arab world is an omni-directional and multi-level reform. It is newsworthy in itself. In this widespread and deep-reaching movement, the Arab people have justice on their side, but are misread by the Chinese media.”

Chinese Agents Send New Round of Fraudulent Emails to Western Governments, NGOs

WASHINGTON DC — A new round of fraudulent emails was sent from suspected Chinese agents to elected officials, journalists and NGOs in Canada, the United States, France and Norway earlier this month. The emails’ senders deceptively claim to be representatives of the Falun Dafa Information Center, and the content of the messages is crafted to portray Falun Gong as bizarre, threatening, intolerant, and otherwise undeserving of sympathy or respect.

The Falun Dafa Information Center received copies of two emails, sent on April 5 and April 14, to a list of recipients that included retired Canadian and Norwegian parliamentarians, newspaper editors, a collection of U.S.- and France-based human rights and press freedom NGOs, and members of the Nobel Prize Committee.

39 Individuals Affected by China’s Crackdown Following Call for “Jasmine Revolution” (Name list)

The Chinese government has criminally detained a total of 39 individuals since mid-February after anonymous calls for “Jasmine Revolution” protests first appeared online. As of today, six of the criminally detained have been formally arrested, three have been sent to Re-education through Labor (RTL) camps, 14 have been released (out of which nine have been released on bail to await trial) while 16 remain detained.

In addition, two people have been placed under residential surveillance while about 17 activists remain missing.

Third day of Shanghai strike threatens China exports- Two arrested, foreign reporters briefly detained

* Two arrested; foreign reporters briefly detained
* Strike sparked by rising costs, fees
* Some exports delayed at world’s busiest container port
* Minimal disruptions to refined copper flows (Adds comment, detail)

By Melanie Lee and Royston Chan

SHANGHAI, April 22 (Reuters) – Striking truck drivers protested for a third day on Friday in Shanghai’s main harbour district amid heavy police presence and signs the action has already started to curb exports from the world’s busiest container port.

The strike is a very public demonstration of anger over rising consumer prices and fuel price increases in China.

Fraud Fuels China’s Underground Organ Industry

To find clients, Cai Shaohua would hang out outside dialysis units at major hospitals in Beijing. A kidney broker in China’s Wild West organ transplant market, it was up to him to find the recipient, while another broker rustled up donors. If the donor passed the physical, Cai would then falsify documents for 400 yuan ($61).

Cai, now a disgraced organ broker who is telling it all, explained to Chinese Life Week magazine that recipients pay between 110,000 and 120,000 yuan ($16,858 to $18,390) for a kidney. He, the other broker, and the donor each get a third.

Besieged Tibetan Monks ‘Tortured’ by Chinese Authorities

Chinese authorities in southwestern Sichuan province have detained and tortured Tibetan monks amid a siege of a major monastery there, according to exile sources.

Tensions have been running high at the besieged monastery of Kirti in Sichuan’s Ngaba prefecture, which is home to some 2,500 Tibetan monks who say they are now running out of food.

The siege of the monastery was sparked by the death of a monk last month in a self-immolation protest against Beijing’s rule. A number of detentions, beatings, and attacks on unarmed local people with trained police dogs have been reported since.

Hundreds of Truck drivers go on strike at China’s Shanghai ports protesting rising costs

SHANGHAI — A strike by truck drivers at Shanghai container ports continued for a second day Thursday, as they called for higher freight rates to offset rising fuel costs, firms and Chinese media said.

Hundreds of drivers, who gathered at several ports in the city on Wednesday morning, were mostly dispersed by police later that day, the Century Weekly magazine said on its website.

However, the story — which made no mention of any violence — was quickly removed and state media did not report further on the incident.

Petition Site for Ai Weiwei Hit by Hackers from China

The social action website Change.org has said it is under continuing attack from hackers after it hosted a petition calling for the release of detained artist Ai Weiwei that garnered more than 90,000 signatures.

Attackers traced to China had begun distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks on Monday, which temporarily brought down the site, the site’s editor said.

“The attacks have not subsided, but our engineering team has done an incredible job mitigating their effects and it seems, for now at least, that they have managed to find a way around this,” Change.org editor Benjamin Joffe-Walt said by e-mail on Wednesday.

China’s Media Campaign Against Ai Weiwei

Chinese media smear campaign against acclaimed dissident artist Ai Weiwei reflects the regime’s fear and need for stability maintenance according to a political Chinese commentator.

Artist Ai Weiwei was taken away by police at the Beijing Airport on April 3. Since then, several of his colleagues have also gone missing and their whereabouts remain unknown.

Lately, the Chinese regime’s army of undercover “Fifty Cent Party” Internet commentators and regime-controlled mass media have been spreading propaganda to smear Ai, saying he is suspected of economic crimes and tax evasion, among other things.

Al-Jazeera journalist pans China’s Libya coverage

By Madeline Earp/CPJ Senior Research Associate-

In reporting on the Libyan conflict, China’s media “emphasize only the humanitarian disasters caused by Western air bombardments, and [report] sparingly if at all on the violent suppression and massacre of the people by Qaddafi,” Al-Jazeera’s Beijing bureau chief, Ezzat Shahrour, writes on his blog. Chinese readers so far have been largely supportive of his viewpoint.

China censored the word “Egypt” back in January, then launched a vigorous campaign to suppress domestic critics for fear of homegrown revolution. So perceptions that state media are siding with Muammar Qaddafi’s authoritarian leadership are no surprise.

Two Chinese Lawyers Freed But “not convenient” to Talk, Ahead of Visits of High-profile Foreign Officials

Chinese authorities have freed two prominent human rights lawyers ahead of visits to Beijing by Australian prime minister Julia Gillard and a group of U.S. Senators.

Beijing-based lawyer Jiang Tianyong returned home on Tuesday, his wife, Jin Bianling, said.

“He’s back,” Jin said, at around 7:30 p.m. local time on Tuesday. “He has just got home.”

She added: “He has lost a lot of weight.”