East China Petitioner Gets One Year and Six Months in Prison for “Obstructing Official Business”

Human Rights in China (HRIC), October 23, 2009 -

Human Rights in China (HRIC) learned that on October 23, 2009, Duan Chunfang (段春芳), a Shanghai petitioner and Charter ’08 signer, was sentenced by a Shanghai court to one year and six months in prison for “obstructing official business.” Duan’s family members said that this is an unjust ruling and that they plan to appeal. Duan has been petitioning the authorities for redress for the 2007 death of her brother, Duan Huimin (段惠民), while he was serving a Reeducation-Through-Labor (RTL) sentence.

In 2000, Duan Chunfang and her brother began petitioning the authorities after her home was demolished by the government and he lost his job. On November 3, 2006, while petitioning in Beijing, they were beaten by around ten men – including one named Gao Weiguo – who had been sent by Shanghai authorities to Beijing to intercept petitioners. The brother and sister were brought back to Shanghai, and Duan Huimin was subsequently sentenced to 13 months of Reeducation-Through-Labor (RTL). He received no medical treatment in detention and his condition worsened. On December 31, 2006, the authorities decided to let Duan serve the remainder of his sentence outside of RTL facilities. While being escorted home by RTL officials, Duan asked to be taken to a hospital but was abandoned in the street instead. After his family retrieved him, he died two days later.

Following Duan Huimin’s death, Duan Chunfang continued to go to Beijing, to seek reparations for her demolished home and justice for her brother death. She also signed Charter ‘08. On June 23, 2009, Duan Chunfang and her husband were surrounded and beaten by a dozen or so policemen. Her arm was injured in several places. On July 3, she was detained and accused of assaulting policemen. She was later formally arrested on suspicion of “obstructing official business.”…… (more from Human Rights in China)

UN Official Taken into Custody by China Police for Forced Evictions Investigation

By Helena Zhu & Grace Wu, Epoch Times Staff, Aug 22, 2009 -

A UN official and those accompanying him were taken into police custody in Jianggan District of Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province on the morning of Aug. 20, according to several Chinese media reports.

The convener for the United Nations Advisory Group on Forced Evictions, Yves Cabannes, went to the Hangzhou East Rail Station construction area after an international conference in the same city. With him were Eva Pils, an associate professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong’s Faculty of Law, and either two or three Hong Kong university students—Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported two students while Voice of America (VOA) reported three, in their Chinese reports.

The group was investigating reports that more than 20 people were forced out of their homes in the area. The alleged evictees were reported to have been petitioning and protesting since evictions and demolition began, and said they were beaten for their trouble.

There are conflicting reports about how police handled the incident. RFA reported that the group was held in police custody until late in the afternoon, while VOA reported staff at the Hangzhou Foreign Affairs Office saying that the whole procedure was less than two or three hours.

“All of what we did followed proper procedure,” said an unidentified staff member of the Foreign Affairs Office, according to VOA. “The police officers just saw a few foreign individuals taking photos and went ahead to question them and asked for their ID. According to our Documents Management Act, this is a necessary procedure.

“One of them was without ID and two others refused to show their IDs. According to our law, they were obligated to display their IDs to police—this is the norm inside and outside of China. Therefore, the police officers asked them to go to the local police station to explain and show their IDs,” VOA reported the staff member saying.

In a statement sent to VOA from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Pils said that she was travelling with a foreign professor who had left his passport in his hotel, and that he was taken to the local police station to be identified. Pils accompanied him to the police station, and she said the problem was solved as soon as he was identified, according to the VOA report.

Part of the statement attributed to Pils contradicted earlier parts of the report, however, as she said that no students were with them.

The Hangzhou municipal government has been accused of collaborating with developers, and using the expansion of the East Railway Station as an excuse for grabbing land, according to the VOA report.

- The Epochtimes

(photo) China: longest total solar eclipse during the 21st century

The solar eclipse of 22 July 2009 was the longest total solar eclipse during the 21st century, not to be surpassed until June 2132.[1] It lasted a maximum of 6 minutes and 39 seconds off the coast of Southeast Asia,[2] causing tourist interest in eastern China, India and Nepal.[2][3][4] This was the second in the series of three eclipses in a one-month period, being book-ended by two minor penumbral lunar eclipses, first on July 7 and last on August 6.  (wikipedia)

Three Lawyers Detained for Defending Falun Gong Practitioners in China

(Chinese Human Rights Defenders- July 15, 2009)  CHRD learned today that three lawyers in different locations in Northeastern China have been detained in recent weeks by local authorities. The three, Liu Ruiping (刘如平), Wang Yonghang (王永航), and Wang Ping (王平), who have previously been harassed because of their work defending Falun Gong practitioners, were seized between July 2 and July 8 in Shandong and Liaoning Provinces.

“As these detentions come on the heels of efforts to punish human rights lawyers around the country by denying them renewal of their lawyers’ licenses, we are concerned that these actions may mark the further deterioration of the situation of human rights lawyers in China,” said Renee Xia, CHRD’s International Director.

On July 2, Liu Ruping (刘如平), a lawyer from Changqing District, Jinan City, Shandong Province’s Shuntian Law Firm (舜天律师事务所) who has represented many Falun Gong practitioners, was kidnapped outside of his apartment block by officers from the Public Security Bureaus (PSB) of Jinan City and Changqing District as well as officials from the Jinan City Party Committee. Liu’s home was also searched. On July 6, Liu’s relatives went to the office of the Changqing District Party Committee demanding to know Liu’s whereabouts. However, officials declined to divulge any details. Liu’s family has not received any official documents regarding his detention or the search of his home. It is believed that he is currently held at a black jail specialized in detaining Falun Gong practitioners and petitioners in Liuchangshan, Jinan City.

On July 4, about twenty plainclothes policemen from the National Security Unit, Shahekou Sub-division and Jinxiu Police Station of the Dalian City PSB barged into the home of Wang Yonghang (王永航), a lawyer from Dalian City, Liaoning Province. Without presenting any legal documents, the policemen searched Wang’s home, held Wang’s wife down to the floor and restrained Wang’s 80-year-old mother. The policemen briefly waved some form of legal document in front of Wang’s wife, asking her to sign it, but she refused.

Wang and his wife were both taken away; his wife was released the next day.  When she went to the police station on July 6, police presented a criminal detention warrant stating that her husband had been detained in accordance with Article 300 of the Criminal Code. Article 300 stipulates the crime of “forming or using superstitious sects or secret societies or weird religious organizations or using superstition to undermine the implementation of the laws and administrative rules and regulations of the State”, and is regularly used against Falun Gong practitioners. Wang is believed to be held in Dalian City PSB Detention Center.

On July 8, Wang Ping (王平), a lawyer from Tianzhengping Law Firm (天正平律师事务所), Pingdu City, Shandong Province was also reportedly kidnapped by the local police. Details about Wang’s apprehension are currently unclear. Reportedly, Wang was also held for representing Falun Gong practitioners in Shandong Province.

Background

Liu Ruping has been practicing law since 1993, and has been a member of the Shuntian Law Firm since 2003…… (more details from Chinese Human Rights Defenders)

China: 13-storey apartment building collapse in Shanghai, Kiled one worker

a toppled 13-storey apartment building that buried one worker in Shanghai June 27, 2009

Report from Reuters

Christian Attorney Zheng Enchong Interrogated and Tortured by China Police

ChinaAid, June 23, 2009 -

SHANGHAI – On June 17 Christian human rights attorney, Zheng Enchong, was interrogated and tortured for nine hours by Public Security Bureau (PSB) officers because of his work defending Chinese citizens whose land has been confiscated by the government. During his detention, he was beaten, stripped and cigarettes were held to his lips and eyelids. Zheng Enchong has filed a written protest and plans to file a complaint to the central government.

According to ChinaAid sources, Zheng Enchong was summoned by four officers from Zhabei District Branch of Shanghai Municipal Public Security Bureau on June 17. During his detention, officers took turns slapping him five or six times in the face, and hitting him three times in the back of his head. Police also held lit cigarettes to his lips and eyelids. Later, the officers pulled him from the seat and took off all his clothing, except his underwear. Police threw his personal belongings, including: money, keys, pen, and a Bible and some cookies to the floor. Then the PSB officers proceeded to search his body.

Authorities compiled a written record of the interrogation without interrogating Zheng at all, and, then, wanted him to sign it. Instead, he wrote down a statement on the record describing his violent treatment by the PSB. He denounced authorities for using the same method on him as they use on Falun Gong practitioners.

Attorney Zheng has been summoned by officials nearly 20 times, and his house searched twice in the past two and a half months. In 2003,  he filed a major legal case exposing how government officials conspired with Zhou Zhengyi, “the richest man in Shanghai,” to illegally confiscate homes for demolition. Since that time, Zheng Enchong has been continually harassed and persecuted by Chinese officials. He was sentenced to three years in prison for “illegally providing secrets to overseas entities.” The charge related to two faxes regarding workers’ protests that Zheng was accused of sending to Human Rights in China, a non-profit organization. Zheng has also been beaten by authorities four times, so badly that he now has difficulty walking.

“As an internationally well-known Christian human rights lawyer, Attorney Zheng has always defended the poor and vulnerable,” said Bob Fu, president of ChinaAid and a friend of Mr. Zheng and his family. “The repeated harassment and torture against such a conscientious rights defender demonstrates the Shanghai authorities’ total disregard to citizens’ basic human rights. We encourage the international community to continue to press the Chinese authorities to stop these hideous acts and to hold the abusers accountable”.

ChinaAid calls on the international community to contact the Chinese Ambassador urge that the violence against Zheng Enchong end, and that government respect and uphold human rights according to the Chinese Constitution and international agreements:

Ambassador Zhou Wenzhong
3505 International Place, NW, Washington, D.C. 20008
Tel: (202) 495-2000
Fax: (202) 588-9760

- ChinaAid

China Attorney: “Falun Gong is a role model for society”

By Li Zhen, Epoch Times Staff,  May 13, 2009 -

In the last week, Shanghai-based human rights attorney, Zheng Enchong, was called into the police station three times, and had his home ransacked. He has been called to the police station a total of 56 times now.

Zheng kept his calm and sense of humor. He told The Epoch Times, “On May 4, I was called to the police station the 54th time. Maybe on June 4 it will be the 64th time, on July 20 it will be the 72nd time, and on October 1 it will be the 100th time.”

The above are all “politically sensitive” dates under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). June 4 is the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre; July 20 is the 10th anniversary of the beginning of the persecution of Falun Gong; and October 1 is the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

Phone calls to Zheng have also become difficult. Police repeatedly take away his cell phones, yet appellants who have admired Zheng for his work, have continued to give him new cell phones. He also receives a large number of harassing calls from the police. On May 9, Zheng told The Epoch Times, “They usually ransack my house on Wednesdays. This week, they called me to the station on Wednesday instead of ransacking my home. They were trying to lower my guard. They came on Thursday instead and brought testing equipment. They even searched the hallways, but they didn’t find anything.”

He said with chagrin, “They wanted to find my communication devices, namely my cell phones, in order to block my communication to the outside world. In April, they came three times and took away more than a dozen cell phones. But this time, they didn’t take away anything.

“They thought I wasn’t receiving any help. A lot of appellants are actually helping me. I have been able to keep contact with the outside world. I think it’s supposed to be this way.”

Despite being closely monitored and harassed by the CCP, Zheng wanted to send his greetings to the founder of Falun Gong, Mr. Li Hongzhi, in honor of May 13, World Falun Dafa Day.

He said, “As a Christian, I would like to send my greetings to Mr. Li Hongzhi for his upcoming birthday on May 13. I would also like to congratulate all Falun Gong practitioners [for International Falun Dafa Day]. Ten years ago, the CCP banned Falun Gong and began the persecution. From what my friends and I can see, Falun Gong’s greatest contribution was to invent software that broke through the Chinese regime’s Internet censorship.

“In Shanghai, such software is quite common now. This has enabled us to see the world outside of the CCP’s control. From my personal perspective, I think Falun Gong practitioners are respected because of their high morality. Both in China and overseas, they have persevered in their faith. The Epoch Times, Sound of Hope Radio, and NTDTV have reported a large number of human rights abuses in China. This was quite encouraging. In addition, the Divine Performing Arts have brought the true Chinese culture to the world. I think this is something that no other group can accomplish. Falun Gong provided moral inspirations and is a role model for society.”

- The Epochtimes

FDA Recalls Dangerous Face Paints Made In China

Matthew Borghese, AHN Editor, May 13, 2009 -

Washington, D.C. (AHN) - The Shanghai Color Art Stationery Company and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) are issuing a recall for children’s face paint that may be harmful when used.

The FDA issued a recall after exposure to the product led to “rashes, itchiness, burning sensation, and swelling where the face paints were applied.” The FDA tested the paint and found “significant microbial contamination” in “most of the products.”

The products were sold by Fun Express Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Oriental Trading Co. The colors effected by the recall include blue, purple, red, orange, black and green.

- AHN

China: Retired Dissident Professor Beaten to Ribs Broken

Human Rights in China, April 06, 2009-

On April 4, 2009, Sun Wenguang (孙文广), 75, retired professor of Shandong University, was brutally beaten by five unidentified men as he returned from paying respects to memory of the late Zhao Ziyang, former General Secretary of the Communist Party of China who visited students on Tiananmen Square during the 1989 democracy movement, and of Zhang Zhixin, a dissident killed during the Cultural Revolution.

In the early morning of Qing Ming, the traditional day of remembering and honoring the dead, Sun defied university authorities to make the trip to Yingxiong Mountain (英雄山) in Jinan, Shandong Province. The police sent nine vehicles to follow Sun’s taxi. He was attacked at around 10:00 a.m. The attackers threw him down a two-meter drop and then beat him for over ten minutes, breaking three of his ribs. He was brought to Jinan’s Qilu Hospital (齐鲁医院). At present he is unable to turn his head but is conscious and reportedly in stable condition.

Between 1966 and 1981, Sun Wenguang was detained and imprisoned multiple times for a total of more than ten years for expressing his opinions on political issues. In the days leading up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Sun was put under 24-hour surveillance. Unidentified persons scrawled “Traitor, Rapist” on the walls of his home, and his home was searched by state security police, who seized two computers, manuscripts, and books published in Hong Kong. In March 2009, Sun sued Shandong University for deducting from his pension after Sun refused to sell his house at the price the university offered, which he claimed was only one-tenth of its market value. The case has not yet reached a resolution.

“Human Rights in China condemns the violence against Sun Wenguang,” said Sharon Hom, executive director of HRIC. “This deplorable act, committed in broad daylight and clear view of the police, against a man for remembering a former Party secretary on Qing Ming, calls into serious question officials’ professed commitment to building a society that puts people first.” HRIC urges the authorities to undertake a thorough investigation of the crime and bring those responsible to justice.

- Human Rights in China

Intel to close China Shanghai plant amid global crisis: statement

SHANGHAI (AFP) — The world’s largest chip maker Intel Corp said Thursday it would shut down an assembly and test factory in Shanghai and move it to a city in China’s far west due to the global economic crisis.

The move will affect about 2,000 employees, who will be offered jobs in the western city of Chengdu or other Chinese locations where Intel operates, the US-based company said in a statement.

The consolidation, which will take place over the next 12 months, came “as a result of current economic conditions”, the statement said.

“The economic downturn has had an enormous impact on the semiconductor sector, forcing companies to take measures to cut costs,” said Liu Liang, an analyst with Industrial Securities, according to state-run Xinhua news agency.

“Moving operations from Shanghai, a high-cost city, to a cheaper place like Sichuan might be an effective way to cope with the financial crisis,” he said.

Intel plans to keep a research and development centre in Shanghai, which will also remain the China headquarters for the company.

It said it was still going ahead with the construction of a plant in the northeast Chinese city of Dalian. The cost of this plant was previously given as 2.5 billion dollars.

Intel last month announced plans to close facilities in Malaysia, the Philippines and the United States. Those moves were expected to affect between 5,000 and 6,000 employees worldwide, the company said.

- AFP, Feb. 5, 2009

In China, out-of-work migrants destabilizing

Anna Mehler Paperny, Chronicle Foreign Service, the San Francisco Chronicle, Friday, January 23, 2009-

On a recent Sunday morning, the scene on the K290 train heading west from Shanghai to China’s rural heartland was one of chaos.

The hard-seat cars teemed with passengers, many of them migrant workers fighting to place their baggage in overhead compartments or find space to sit in the aisles.

Chun yun, or spring festival transport, is the world’s largest human migration, involving hundreds of millions of people annually traveling home before the Lunar New Year. But this year, migrants returning home before the Year of the Ox begins Monday got an early start after hundreds of thousands of workers lost their city jobs.

Work drying up

“There is no work,” said Yang Nan, who returned to Sichuan province last month with her husband, Gou Zong Hai, and their 10-month-old daughter, Zhao Yin, after working in the eastern city of Wuxi. The occasional construction work that Gou relied on to feed the family dried up during an economic crisis that is closing factories throughout China’s industrial heartland.

As global recession slows demand for cheap consumer goods – whose export has fueled China’s breakneck economic growth for nearly three decades – the government is facing waves of factory closures and layoffs. In 2008, 670,000 small and medium-size businesses closed, laying off an estimated 10 million people, mostly migrant workers, according to the ministry of human resources and social security.

The government of agricultural Henan province announced that 3.7 million jobless migrants recently returned. In industrial Guangdong province, by contrast, more than 600,000 migrants have left for home, and the provincial governor says another 1 million could leave in coming months as more businesses close or lay off employees.

Some observers are worried that an army of unemployed workers could spark widespread social unrest.

Destabilizing force

“If these people organize, it could be quite different than what happened in ‘89,” said Melissa Thomas, a partner in the Shanghai office of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, an international law firm that advises foreign companies doing business in China, referring to the pro-democracy demonstrations in Tiananmen Square that left as many as 3,000 dead or injured. “These are people who feel they have nothing to lose, because there’s nothing for them. The government is really aware of that.” …… (more details from the San Francisco Chronicle)

New death from bird flu in China

BBC News, Jan 19, 2008-

A Chinese woman has died from bird flu in the eastern Shandong province, state media has said.

It says Ms Zhang, aged 27, died at the weekend after becoming infected with the H5N1 strain of avian influenza.

It is the second reported death from bird flu in China this year. Two weeks ago, a 19-year-old woman died in Beijing after handling ducks.

The latest death was announced the day after the infection of a two-year old with bird flu in Hunan was reported.

The three new cases are the first to be reported in China in almost a year.

The toddler is now in hospital in her home province of Shanxi and all those who had been in contact with her are being watched.

The toll from bird flu in China is now reported by state media as 22 since 2003.

China’s ministry of agriculture said on Sunday that no bird flu epidemics were detected in Shanxi and Henan provinces after the two-year-old’s infection was confirmed.

Grim threat

The ministry said China now faces “a grim situation” in bird flu prevention, threatened by frequent outbreaks in neighbouring countries, the Chinese state news agency Xinhua reported.

Other threats came from brisk poultry trade ahead of the Spring Festival and difficulties in taking prevention measures at loosely managed household farms, it said.

Bird flu often resurges in the winter months in China, but not every case is fatal.

China has the world’s biggest poultry population and is seen as critical in the fight to contain H5N1, which resurfaced in Asia in 2003, killing at least 247 people.

H5N1 does not transmit easily to humans but experts fear it could mutate and cause a worldwide pandemic.

- BBC News

(video) China Mental Hospital Horror: elderly patient beaten to death

By Jin Xin, Epoch Times Staff, Jan 12, 2009 -

Video footage revealing shocking abuse in a Chinese mental hospital has been circulating among Chinese bloggers recently.

The video footage shows three hospital staff workers in white lab coats kicking and beating an elderly patient with a mop and tying her to a bed. Staff are also shown making her sit naked from the waist down on top of a plastic cloth during winter.

The footage was posted by Zhu Chuanming, who claimed that nurses in Shandong Province’s Laiwu Mental Hospital abused his mother, Wang Xiuying. She died eight days after she was admitted to the hospital. The source of the footage is from a news report from Shandong Province’s Qilu TV station on Dec. 30, 2008.

Sparking great anger among Chinese bloggers, the footage also drew attention from overseas Falun Gong practitioners. Zhang Zhaojing, a representative of the Toronto Falun Dafa Association in Canada said that they were very concerned about this incident. The video is evidence of what Falun Gong practitioners have stated for the past nine-plus years—that the Chinese Communist regime has widely put Falun Gong practitioners in mental hospitals and used torture to force them to denounce their belief.

Mr. Zhang said that on the Minghui Web site there were 5,259 cases of persecution of Falun Gong practitioners that were linked to mental hospitals. Among the 3,231 death cases, 68 deaths were linked to detention in mental hospitals. In addition, several hundred Falun Gong practitioners also reported that they were subjected to the same kind of beating Wang Xiuying suffered in the mental hospital.

Mr. Zhang believes this video footage has revealed to the world the big dark secret of the Chinese Communist regime using mental hospitals to commit human rights violations against Chinese people on a large scale……. (more details from The Epochtimes)

China manufacturing sector close to recession: CLSA

AFP, Jan 2, 2009-

SHANGHAI (AFP) — China’s manufacturing sector is close to a technical recession after output contracted at a record pace in December, a leading independent brokerage said Friday.

The CLSA China Purchasing Managers Index (PMI) which measures manufacturing activity nationwide, stood at 41.2 in December and although it was up from November’s 40.9, overall output still contracted, CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets said.

A reading above 50.0 means the manufacturing economy is expanding, while a reading below 50 indicates an overall decline.

The December figure represents the fifth contraction in a row, CLSA said.

The direction of China’s manufacturing sector reflects the overall direction of the world’s fourth-largest economy.

The PMI figures indicate a large manufacturing slowdown in the fourth quarter.

“Chinese manufacturing activity was very weak in December. Output contracted at a record pace, employment fell for the fifth month and work in hand declined,” said Eric Fishwick, head of CLSA Economic Research.

“With five back-to-back PMIs signalling contraction, the manufacturing sector, which accounts for 43 percent of the Chinese economy, is close to technical recession,” he said.

The World Bank has predicted that economic growth in China next year will slow to a 19-year low of 7.5 percent.

The PMI is based on data compiled from a monthly survey of purchasing executives in more than 400 manufacturing companies in various industries across the country.

- AFP

Why Foreign Businesses Flee China

The Chosun Ilbo, S. Korea, Dec.23,2008 -

The Chinese government recently announced its intention to sue foreign businesses for leaving the country without permission. Chinese officials said they plan to seek legal assistance in the countries of foreign businesses to receive back-pay and debt owed in China — and even seek the extradition of law-breakers.

Some Chinese media have reported that such “abnormal” exits from China mostly involve small- and mid-sized Korean businesses. But this problem does not involve only Korean businesses. Recently, Guangdong Province formed a special taskforce to supervise companies that owe money to workers and dispatched the team to Dongguan city. Hong Kong and Taiwanese businesses are based there. During September and October of this year, 117 businesses fled from Dongguan, according to Hong Kong media.

It is true that many small- and mid-sized Korean businesses secretly shutter their plants and escape China. In Qingdao, where Korean businesses are clustered, around 200 out of 8,000 companies are said to have fled China without permission. We cannot back these companies. It appears that China has come out with these hard-line measures to deal with such businesses, since it is faced with an increasing number of discontented workers as its economic slowdown intensifies and more factories close.

But it is difficult to criticize businesses that flee. When attracting foreign businesses, China offers a “one-stop” service, whereby one government department handles procedures. But when a foreign company tries to leave China, company officials must visit individual government branches handling labor, tax, customs, foreign exchange, social security, real estate and other measures and undergo procedures at each of those offices. Chinese authorities do not have much experience handling corporate liquidation, meaning a lack of consistency in interpreting regulations. As a result, it may take anywhere from eight months to two years to complete a liquidation process.

Moreover, when word spreads that a foreign business is trying to close down operations in China, workers and suppliers storm into the main offices and threaten staff. Business people say some are lucky to get out alive. Proper liquidation procedures will not be undertaken while the rule of law is not observed in China.

- The Chosun Ilbo

China Culls 377,000 poultry in East China After Finding Bird Flu

By Lee Spears, The Bloomberg, Dec. 16, 2008 -

Dec. 16 (Bloomberg) – China culled 377,000 poultry in eastern Jiangsu province after finding the H5N1 strain of the avian-flu virus in chickens in the area, the Ministry of Agriculture said on its Web site.

The virus was found in poultry being raised in Dongtai city and Hai’an County, both in Jiangsu, the ministry said. There was no outbreak of the virus in the region, the statement said.

The areas where the poultry were raised have been disinfected, other poultry have been placed under quarantine, and transport of all poultry from the two areas has been halted, the statement said. Experts have been dispatched to the affected areas to survey the situation, it said.

Contact with migratory birds carrying the virus is one possible cause of infection in the poultry, the statement said. The announcement comes after dead chickens in Hong Kong last week tested positive for the H5N1 strain, and India culled more than 250,000 birds in its northeast to contain an outbreak.

At least 387 people in 15 countries have been infected with the deadly H5N1 strain of the avian-flu virus since 2003, according to the Geneva-based World Health Organization. Almost two of every three cases were fatal. China has had 30 bird-flu cases in humans and 20 deaths since December 2003, according to WHO.

- THE Bloomberg

Industrial protests spread to China’s commercial capital Shanghai

By Channel News Asia’s China Correspondent Glenda Chong, Singapore, 10 December 2008 -

SHANGHAI: Recession-related worker unrest in China has spread to the country’s commercial capital.

Workers at a factory of Taiwan-owned, Singapore-listed Huan Hsin Holdings have refused to work since Monday due to salary issues.

Shanghai Yihsin Industry Company, which has six plants in Shanghai, is a wholly-owned unit of Huan Hsin Holdings.

Hundreds of factory workers maintained a peaceful protest outside the Yihsin factory in Shanghai’s south-western suburb of Minhang for the third straight day.

A worker said: “We rarely have any orders now. The workshops are all closed. We were told that we would be transferred to other factories. Our factory will be closed soon.”

The factory reportedly employs about 2,000 workers who are demanding for compensation, severance pay and legal benefits due to them.

Under labour laws enacted last year, employers in China have to pay workers a whole host of compensation allowances.

These include a so-called “high temperature” fee of no less than US$1.50 a day if they work in indoor temperatures of higher than 33 degrees Celsius. Those working the graveyard shift for 12 hours must also get an extra 60 US cents allowance.

The protesting workers said they have only been paid their basic salary of about US$140.

“We want our high temperature fees and night shift compensation. If they give us, we will go wherever they post us. It is just this simple,” one said.

Another added: “We will continue doing this. They should give us what is due. We don’t ask for extra.”

According to some workers, they were told in September that they would be paid, but have yet to see the money. They also said they have been threatened since they began their protest.

One of the factory workers showed footage recorded on her mobile phone, showing a scuffle with police. She also told Channel NewsAsia that some of her colleagues had been beaten up by gangsters on Monday.

The company’s secretary said they are dealing with the situation. A company spokesman also said production at the factory has not been suspended.

The electronics component company manufactures for Siemens, Sony and Lucent Technologies. Parent company Huan Hsin reported that net profits fell 86 per cent in the third quarter of this year to about US$500,000.

- Channel News Asia

China city checks petitions into mental hospital

Reuters, Dec. 8, 2008-

BEIJING (Reuters) – Authorities in eastern China have found a creative way to deal with residents with complaints — checking them into a mental hospital and force-feeding them drugs, local media reported on Monday, citing victims.

Authorities in Xintai, a municipal region in eastern Shandong province, had forced at least 18 people with grievances, ranging from police brutality to property disputes, into a local mental hospital, the Beijing News said.

Chinese residents with complaints directed at local governments often travel to “petitions and appeals” offices (also called “letters and visits” offices) in provincial capitals and in Beijing after failing to get redress through lower channels.

Local governments, fearing embarrassment, often send police and other officials to intercept them and forcefully take them back to their home villages.

Sun Fawu, a 57-year-old retired miner from Dagouqiao village in Xintai, was force-fed drugs and injections during a more than 20-day stay at the Xintai Mental Health Hospital in October, the paper said.

“My head was always dizzy and I could not stay up,” the paper quoted Sun as saying. He had campaigned for years to get compensation for spoiled farm land and housing stemming from coal mining near his village.

Sun was released only after he signed a document saying he was mentally ill and “would not petition again,” the paper said……. (more details from Reuters)