China arrests applicants for demonstration in designated “protest zones”

Human Rights Watch, Aug. 13, 2008-

(New York, August 13, 2008) – The Chinese government is detaining a rights activist who applied to demonstrate legally in designated “protest zones” established for the Beijing Olympics, Human Rights Watch said today.

Ji Sizun, 58, a self-described grassroots legal activist from Fujian province, was arrested on August 11, 2008. On August 8, Ji had applied to the Deshengmenwai police station in Beijing’s Xicheng District for a permit to hold a protest in one of the city’s three designated “protest zones.” In his application, Ji stated that the protest would call for greater participation of Chinese citizens in political processes, and denounce rampant official corruption and abuses of power. He was arrested after checking back at the police station on the status of his application, witnesses told Human Rights Watch.

“The Chinese government should immediately release Ji Sizun and anyone else detained by police while trying to exercise their basic rights,” said Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “The protest application process clearly isn’t about giving people greater freedom of expression, but making it easier for the police to suppress it.”

Eyewitnesses said Ji entered the police station at around 10:45 a.m. on August 11. At 12:15 p.m., he was escorted out of the building and put into a dark-colored, unmarked Buick by several men who appeared to be plainclothes policemen. Ji managed to make a short call to his family to notify them he had “problems,” but has since disappeared and remains unreachable on his mobile phone.

Public demonstrations critical of the Chinese government routinely reap swift and harsh retribution from state security forces. On July 23, however, the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (BOCOG) security director, Liu Shaowu, announced the creation of three protest zones in Beijing parks. He told reporters that: “People or protesters who want to express their personal opinions can go to do so” in line with “common practice in other countries.”

The process, however, is more restrictive than in many countries that use pre-designated protest areas. Applicants must give formal notification at least five days in advance, subject to police approval, which could be withdrawn at any time. Other conditions imposed by the government on the protest zones disqualify the majority of Chinese citizens from even applying for the right to use the areas. Non-Beijing residents are prohibited from protesting. Protests which might harm “national unity” and “national, social or collective interests” are also legally forbidden without any clarification of what might constitute a violation of these broad terms.

The three protest zones have so far remained empty of demonstrators.

“Nobody should confuse the lack of protesters with a lack of complaints,” said Richardson. “The detention and harassment of those who tried to take the government at its word shows the lengths to which the authorities will go to keep people from peacefully expressing their views.”

Other Chinese citizens have attempted to apply for permission and instead been harassed or detained in recent days. They include the following:

* Dr. Ge Yifei, a 48-year-old doctor from Suzhou, was detained in Beijing by Suzhou government officials who had followed her to the capital, where she was attempting to apply for permission to protest about a property dispute in her home town. The officials held Ge for several hours and then forcibly escorted her back to Suzhou.
* Police at Beijing’s Haidian district police station refused to accept an application by Zhang Wei in late July to protest over the demolition of her home for Olympics-related development. On August 12, Zhang’s son Mi Yu told the Associated Press that the district court had sentenced Zhang to a month in prison for “disturbing social order” in connection with a small protest Zhang took part in last week in Beijing’s Qianmen district with around 20 of her former neighbors.
* Representatives of parents wanting to protest in Beijing about the deaths of their children in the May 12 Sichuan earthquake were intercepted at Chengdu airport by police who “tore up their (airline) tickets,” the Washington Post reported on August 6.
* Beijing police arrested Tang Xuecheng in early August when he applied for permission to protest local corruption in his native Hunan province, The Australian newspaper reported on August 12.

Human Rights Watch said these incidents are occurring against a backdrop of intensifying official reprisals against Chinese citizens who are critical of the government in interviews with foreign journalists, and of strict police surveillance of prominent dissidents and activists in Beijing. ……

Falun Gong prisoners targeted for organs in China: report

Jennifer Macey, The World Today program, The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), Austrlia, Tuesday, 12 August , 2008-

ELEANOR HALL: China’s human rights record is again under scrutiny, this time at an International Transplantation Congress in Sydney. A Canadian human rights lawyer says he has new evidence of forced organ removals from prisoners and Falun Gong practitioners in China.

David Matas says Chinese hospitals perform 10,000 organ transplant operations each year and that many of the recipients are foreigners. As Jennifer Macey reports, he’s now calling on the Australian Government to do more to stop the practice.

JENNIFER MACEY: China performs an estimated 10,000 organ transplant operations each year more than any other country in the world except for the United States. But China has no formalised system of organ donations and human rights groups say the short waiting times and availability of organs in China raises serious questions about their source.

Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch first reported 10 years ago that the majority of these organs come from prisoners. Now Canadian Human Rights Lawyer David Matas says among the prison population, it’s now members of Falun Gong who are being increasingly targeted.

DAVID MATAS: China’s source of organs for transplants is almost entirely from prisoners according to the Deputy Minister of Health it’s 95 per cent, according to other statistics it’s 96 per cent. So it’s almost entirely forced organ harvesting. And there’s two sources – it’s prisoners sentenced to death and Falun Gong practitioners.

JENNIFER MACEY: Mr Matas says hospitals and prisons have arrangements to split the profits made through organ transplant operations, often to foreign patients. He says the prisoners are killed after their organs are removed.

DAVID MATAS: Basically they wait until there’s an order from the hospital, they will blood test the person, and then they inject the person with potassium, and then they put them into a van and the actual organ extraction is in the van, where the prisoner is killed through the organ extraction and then the body is cremated.

JENNIFER MACEY: Last year David Mr Matas and Canadian former secretary of state David Kilgour released a report investigating allegations of organ harvesting of Falun Gong members in China. Mr Matas concedes it’s difficult to find proof of this practise as China won’t release official statistics on executions or organ transplants

But he says he has new audio tapes of Chinese doctors admitting they have Falun Gong organs for sale.

DAVID MATAS: We had callers calling in to China pretending to be relatives of patients who needed organs and asking the hospital that they were calling for organs of Falun Gong practitioners on the basis that Falun Gong’s an exercise regime that practitioners are healthy and their organs are healthy. And we got admissions on tape throughout China and we’ve got the transcripts in our report and we’ve got phone records and we got the tapes from pick up to hang down.

JENNIFER MACEY: Dr Yuan Hong worked as a heart surgeon for ten years at a medical university hospital in north eastern China. He says it was an open secret at his hospital that prisoners organs were used in transplant operations for patients who had travelled from Japan.

YUAN HONG (translated): I start to notice these issues because one of the nurse wearing the army dress and then I also find an anaesthetist also wear the same clothes. So I ask him “why do you have to wear these clothes?” and then he told me, “we have to go to the place where people do executions, so we needed to transplant a kidney there.”

JENNIFER MACEY: So you knew of Japanese people who were coming to your hospital for organ transplants?

YUAN HONG (translated): Because foreigner came to our hospital to be treated. It’s a hot topic, so everybody knows.

JENNIFER MACEY: Jennifer Zeng is a member of Falun Gong who was offered asylum in Australia several years ago. In China she spent a year in a labour camp near Beijing. She says at the camp her blood was taken for tests and she underwent several health checks.

JENNIFER MACEY: Only Falun Gong practitioners were tested and get this physical check up. A lot of Falun Gong practitioners thought that Falun Gong got some special treatment, because they saw a physical check up after you were there for long years, it’s good for your health.

So they ask the police, ‘how about we pay for the physical check’ and the police clearly said no, it’s only for Falun Gong. So other prisoners even protested against it, they say, they are not treated fairly because they obviously didn’t know the purpose.

JENNIFER MACEY: Human rights lawyer David Matas says there’s a lot more the Australian Government could do to help stamp out the practice.

DAVID MATAS: The Government’s could introduce extra-territorial legislation so that transplant tourism can become a crime, the way now child sex tourism is a crime,.

ELEANOR HALL: Canadian human rights lawyer David Matas ending that report by Jennifer Macey.

- Original: Falun Gong prisoners targeted for organs: report

Canadian MP Releases Report Criticizing China’s Human Rights Abuses Betray Olympic Pledge

Canadian MP, former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, Irwin Cotler, at press conference, Aug. 7, 2008

By Cindy Chan, Epoch Times Ottawa Staff, Canada, Aug 7, 2008-

OTTAWA—On the eve of the Beijing Olympics, Liberal MP Irwin Cotler released a report that highly criticizes China’s ongoing human rights abuses despite promising to make improvements when awarded the Games in 2001.

“What we are witnessing today in China is a persistent and pervasive assault on human rights — a betrayal of the Olympic Charter, the modern Olympic movement, and China’s pledge to respect both,” said Mr. Cotler at a press conference on Parliament Hill.

The report identifies 11 key areas of human rights violations by the Chinese regime. They include Tibetans, Falun Gong practitioners and other persecuted groups; the crackdown on press freedom; mistreatment of prisoners; the death penalty; and complicity in genocide and rights abuses in countries such as Darfur, Zimbabwe, Burma, and Nepal.

“China undertook, in their words, to respect human rights, to respect media freedom, and then they added, ‘we will translate these words into deeds,’” Mr. Cotler said at an interview following the press conference. “Yet seven years later, the deeds mock the words.”

Mr. Cotler urged foreign governments to “speak up and speak out” and in particular asked world leaders attending the Beijing Olympics to call publicly for the release of political prisoners.

His report includes names of specific prisoners and makes recommendations with respect to each category.

“It concludes both with the need to hold China to account to end the culture of impunity, and to secure the promises that China originally gave that it would have press freedom and advance the cause of human rights,” said Mr. Cotler

At the press conference he was accompanied by former Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific David Kilgour,

HUMAN RIGHTS CRUSADERS L – R: Beryl Wajsman, president of the Institute for Public Affairs of Montreal: Liberal MP Irwin Cotler; international human rights activist Nazanin Afshin-Jam; and former Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific David Kilgour (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

international human rights activist and Miss World Canada 2003 Nazanin Afshin-Jam, and Beryl Wajsman, president of the Institute for Public Affairs of Montreal.

Mr. Cotler is a former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of Canada and currently the Official Opposition Human Rights Critic. He noted that “there is an inter-relationship between trade and human rights and we cannot proceed in terms of business as usual.”

Map: Labor Camps Close to China Olympic Venue (1): Beijing Tuanhe

Nearby Olympic Venue in Beijing City:

Name: National Stadium, a.k.a. Bird’s Nest
Events: Opening and closing ceremonies, track and field, soccer finals

Labor Camp:

Name: Tuanhe “Re-education Through Labor” Camp
Address: 1-Tuan’gui Street, Liu Village, Huangcun Town, Daxing District, Beijing
Phone: +86-(0)10─61299888

Directions

Directions to Tuanhe Labor Camp: View below, or click here to download .doc file (44kb)

From Beijing International Airport: Total 55.2 km
From Wangfujing (City Center) Subway Station:Total 29.4 km

Map:

Beijing area map, showing the location of Tuanhe Labor Camp and Beijing Olympic Venue- National Stadium

A. Beijing Capital International Airport: ( 首都国际机场)
B. National Stadium: (鸟巢国家体育场)
C. Tiananmen Square: (天安门广场)
D. Subway station
E. Women Labor Camp: (女子劳教所)
F. Tuanhe Labor Camp: (团河劳教所)

About Tuanhe “Re-education Through Labor” Camp

Description:

Tuanhe Labor Camp has been in use since the 1960s, and is said to hold several thousand prisoners. Tuanhe Dispatch Center is part of the same complex, and all prisoners sent to “re-education through labor” (RTL) facilities in Beijing must first pass through the Tuanhe Dispatch Center before going to other sites. Both men and women are confined in the dispatch center, but in separate facilities. Tuanhe Labor Camp is male only.

Prisoners:

According to Chen Gang, a New Jersey resident and Falun Gong practitioner held in Tuanhe for 18 months, from 2000-2001, the majority of prisoners were Falun Gong adherents.

Prison conditions:

According to former detainees, prisoners are held in unsanitary conditions, with over a dozen individuals sharing a room of 130 square feet in which they eat, work, and perform bodily functions. Former prisoners speak of working over 16 hours a day packaging chopsticks for domestic and international use in unhygienic conditions, as well as being subjected to beatings, severe sleep deprivation, electric baton shocks, and anti-Falun Gong study sessions.

Products:

Chopsticks (primary) and steel brushes.

Falun Gong practitioner Chen Ying, now living in France, wrote the following about her experience producing chopsticks in Tuanhe:

“I was locked up with over a dozen other Falun Gong practitioners in a cell that was about twelve square meters (130 square feet) in size. We did everything in this cell, including working, eating, drinking, and using the toilet; therefore, there were many flies and mosquitoes. If we could not finish the work assigned to us, we were not allowed to clean ourselves.

“We were allowed very little sleep each day, and forced to start working the moment we opened our eyes. My hands had blisters and thick calluses from working long hours to finish the assigned quota of packaging disposable chopsticks. I often worked until midnight. We were not allowed to sleep unless we finished the quota. We were forced to work over 16 hours every day, and everything was done in our cells.

“The sanitation conditions were extremely poor. Even though we were packaging disposable chopsticks and the label said the chopsticks were disinfected at a high temperature, the entire process was unhygienic. We could not wash our hands, and we had to package those chopsticks that had fallen on the floor. In order to seek a huge profit, Tuanhe Prisoner Dispatch Center and Tuanhe Labor Camp disregarded the health of the general public and knowingly committed such wrongdoings. Many restaurants in Beijing are currently using these chopsticks. I heard they are even being exported to other countries.”

Show Tours:

In 2001, a closely managed tour of the Tuanhe Labor Camp was conducted for foreign media, exhibiting sections of the camp containing green fields and animals such as deer. However, former prisoners held in the camp at the time speak of a staged presentation by prison officials for the benefit of reporters. Chen Gang reports that before the tour, roads were repaired, buildings painted, and prisoners were given a list of questions and answers to memorize. The list included questions like, “Were there any beatings?” Answer: “No.” During that period of time, practitioners who had not renounced their beliefs were sent to a remote corner of the camp. When they were returned, they were told that reporters had come for a visit, but that officials did not want them to see the practitioners.

Chen also learned after his release that two practitioners who had arrived at Tuanhe only a day or two before the tour were allowed to meet reporters. They were separated and isolated upon their arrival. When reporters asked them if they practice Falun Gong, they replied, “Yes” and when they asked if they had been beaten, they said “no.” Each situation was crafted to convey a positive impression of the facility, as realistically as possible.

Individual cases:

1. Amnesty International Prisoner of Conscience: Bu Dongwei

Bu Dongwei (image courtesy Amnesty International)

Bu Dongwei currently serving 2.5 year sentence.

Mr. Bu Dongwei was working for the Asia Foundation, an American aid organization, when he was taken from his home in May 2006 by security agents and sentenced to two and a half years of “re-education through labor” (RTL) because he practices Falun Gong.

According to Amnesty International (AI): “This is not the first time Bu Dongwei has been imprisoned for his beliefs. After petitioning the authorities to review their ban on Falun Gong in 2000, he was sentenced to 10 months RTL…. Amnesty International has been told that during RTL he was deprived of sleep, beaten and forced to sit in a small chair all day – all to make him renounce his beliefs.”

AI considers him a prisoner of conscience and is calling for his immediate and unconditional release, an end to the crackdown against Falun Gong, and abolishment of the RTL system. See: http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?id=ENGASA170522007&lang=e

2. Former prisoner of conscience: Zhao Ming

Zhao Ming

Zhao Ming, post-graduate student at Ireland’s Trinity College, held at Tuanhe from July 2000 to March 2002

“When I visited China to appeal on behalf of Falun Gong, I was jailed. In the labor camp…I was forced to stand and squat for long periods of time, repeatedly shocked with electric batons, sleep deprived, made to attend brainwashing classes, and force-fed.

“Ten inmates who were under orders by the police guards in the camp once beat me together, which made my thighs black all over with bruises and made me unable to walk for two weeks after that. Two weeks before I was released, I was shocked with 6 electric batons by 5 policemen while tied up on a bed board.”

3. Message for reporters from former prisoner Chen Gang, a musician currently living in New Jersey.

“The CCP can stage everything. I don’t know if they [reporters] can discover the truth there. If you want to know the facts you have to find a way. Don’t be fooled by the CCP. A few of my friends are still in prison there. They could even be tortured to death by now.

“It’s really hard and dangerous but I hope reporters can discover the crimes behind closed doors.”— July 26, 2008

Chen Gang, Zhao Ming, Chen Ying, and Bu Dongwei’s wife, herself a former prisoner of conscience currently residing in the United States, are available for interviews upon request.

- Excerpt from report “Torture Outside the Olympic Village: A Guide to China’s Labor Camps“, by CIPFG

Related:
- Guide to Beijing Olympic Reporters: Torture Outside The Olympic Village in Labor Camps, By CIPFG

“CBC becoming a vehicle of Chinese government propaganda”, says David Matas

James Cowan, CanWest News Service, Via the National Post, Canada, Tuesday, November 20, 2007-

TORONTO — CBC Newsworld made its own last-minute changes to a documentary on the Falun Gong before airing it Tuesday night after the film’s producer refused to help make additional cuts to his controversial film.

Beyond the Red Wall: The Persecution of the Falun Gong was originally scheduled to appear on Nov. 6, but CBC executives delayed its air date after receiving calls from Chinese diplomats. After reviewing the film, the CBC requested a series of tweaks from producer Peter Rowe.

He agreed, but became frustrated last weekend when the public broadcaster requested a second round of changes, including minor cuts to interview footage. “They called me on Saturday morning and said they were going to go ahead with more cutting,” Mr. Rowe said. “They asked if I wanted to participate and I just said ‘No.” I feel enough is enough . . . it’s like a never-ending process. It’s just kind of crazy.”

Mr. Rowe’s documentary tells the story of Kunlun Zhung, a professor at McGill University and a Falun Gong practitioner, who spent three years in a Chinese labour camp. The film also addresses allegations the Chinese harvest organs from imprisoned members of the meditative sect.

The CBC cut portions of the film dealing with a 2006 report on organ harvesting co-authored by David Matas, a human rights lawyer, and David Kilgour, a former MP and secretary of state. It also inserted a graphic to clarify an interview subject’s claim that Amnesty International supported the Falun Gong’s allegations of abuse, which is not entirely true.

“I don’t know what the (graphic) will say, but the reality is that Amnesty International has said it is subject matter worth investigating, but they do not have any further proof,” Mr. Rowe said.

Jeff Keay, a CBC spokesman, said the final round of changes made by CBC officials affect about one minute of footage. Mr. Keay reiterated the CBC’s position that the film was reworked because of editorial concerns and not because of pressure from the Chinese government.

“There were a couple of points where some assertions were made where we were of the view that the supporting evidence was not there, so I think there are going to be deletions,” Mr. Keay said. “We’re also going to add some graphics to indicate when footage was supplied by Falun Gong.”

The CBC felt it needed to rigorously review the documentary because of its contentious subject matter, Mr. Keay said. Because the documentary presents a balanced perspective, it is unlikely that either the Chinese government or the Falun Gong will be entirely happy, he added.

“We wanted to have a credible and solid piece of work out there, because I suspect, at the end of the day, we will have the Chinese government upset with us and we will have some Falun Gong members upset with us,” he said.

Mr. Matas, who represented Mr. Zhung, said allowing the Chinese government to deny it violates human rights violations is not balanced reporting. “The notion that CBC would pay any attention to Chinese concerns is evidence they’ve lost all perspective,” Mr. Matas said. “The CBC becoming a vehicle of Chinese government propaganda — even under the notion that it’s balanced coverage — is not responsible journalism.”

- Origina report from National Post: Producer won’t make more cuts to Falun Gong doc

Open letter asking head of China Telecom to keep promise to restore Internet services

Reporters Without Borders, 26.10.2007-

Reporters Without Borders has written to the head of China Telecom, Wang Xiaochu, asking him to keep his promise to restore Internet access. China’s leading provider of Internet bandwidth and services has been partially blocking Internet access in the provinces since the end of August.

“Dear Mr. Wang,

Reporters Without Borders is astonished by the interruptions in the services of some your Internet data centres (IDCs) in recent months. One of your employees, who works at the Zitian IDC, lost his Internet connection without any explanation on 23 August and did not get it back for nearly two weeks. Two of your other IDCs, Lanmang and Waigaoqiao, have also experienced frequent interruptions in the provinces of Guangdong and Shanghai.

More than 30 of Waigaoqiao’s computers were simultaneously turned off on 3 September, affecting more than 20 servers and thousands of websites. These interruptions have generally taken place after online comments or posts regarded as “illegal” by the government. Such behaviour is intolerable in a society such as yours which advocates access to information. As well as damaging your society’s image, it is a serious violation of the right to news and information.

As the Communist Party’s 17th congress was closing, you referred to the problem with the Zitian IDC in Henan province and you promised to restore access. We urge you to keep this promise and to order the immediate restoration of services so that no other website is affected, however briefly, but an interruption at any of your IDCs.

We trust you will give this matter your careful consideration.

Sincerely,

Robert Ménard Reporters Without Borders Secretary-General”

- Original report from  Reporters Without Borders