Radio Free Asia, 2009-10-26 -

WASHINGTON—An activist Chinese legal scholar has called for greater international attention on rights violations in China, particularly the authorities’ bid to stop rights defenders by cancelling their licenses to practice law.

“China has a growing attorney community, which now has probably 140,000 to 150,000 members. Lawyers have strong ties with the people, and they belong to neither the officialdom nor the judiciary system,” legal expert and philosopher Wang Guangze said in an interview here.

“In recent years, some rights lawyers’ own rights to conduct business have been deprived by authorities through annulment of their licenses. This act should receive the close attention of the whole Chinese society as well as the international community,” Wang said.

“If their rights were violated, this is not only harmful to the legal practice, but also harmful to society as a whole,” said Wang, who has worked at the China Legal Daily, 21st Century Economic Herald, and The New York Times.

Wang was here Friday with Beijing-based rights lawyers Jiang Tianyong and Zhang Kai, both of whom have been harassed and detained following their work on behalf of clients reviled by the authorities, such as ethnic Uyghur criminal defendants or members of the banned Falun Gong movement.

Chinese rights advocates have long complained of intimidation, beatings, and detention for defending dissidents. Zhang’s law license was suspended in May 2009. Jiang has faced trouble from the authorities in renewing his law license in 2006, 2008, and 2009.

Tibet an issue

Jiang, whose law license was suspended this year, has taken on politically sensitive clients including a Tibetan religious leader charged after the March 2008 unrest in Lhasa, victims of a Shanxi province slave labor ring freed in June 2007, and members of the banned Falun Gong movement.

Jiang most recently ran afoul of the government after initiating an open letter offering free legal services to Tibetans detained in connection with a massive uprising against Chinese rule in March 2008.

“I believe that Tibetans are Chinese citizens and should be protected by the Chinese law. The Lhasa riots attracted worldwide attention and the related trials should be carried out even more strictly according to China’s Constitution and law, to ensure everyone’s rights are protected. But all the attorneys who signed my open letter were harassed by police,” Jiang said.

Jiang said he has suffered police harassment and telephone surveillance since 2005.

“Police also harassed my family members in 2006, 2008, and this year. They set up surveillance posts in front of my residence and stopped me from going out on sensitive days such as June 4, or when the authorities had an important meeting,” Jiang said.

“The Beijing legal administrative authorities didn’t renew my attorney license last July, as a punishment. But now there are around a dozen lawyers nationwide who didn’t get their licenses renewed for the year of 2009.”

Uyghur defendants

Zhang Kai, whose law license was suspended in May 2009, said he was barred from meeting with a Uyghur criminal defendant whom he had agreed to represent.

“The rights cases I dealt with include some cases of religious freedom,” he said, citing members of the banned Falun Gong movement, which Beijing regards as a cult, as well as detainees who had been subject to torture.

“A typical case is a Christian by the name Ali Mujiang in Xinjiang. He is an ethnic Uyghur and has been illegally detained for almost two years but there is still no solution in sight. After I took the case, I was not allowed to meet him, and the legal authorities said to me ‘You cannot represent him.’”

“All these cases showed that basic human rights are not protected in China,” Zhang said.

“Even I was beaten up by police this past May.”

- Radi Free Asia

By Charlotte Cuthbertson, Epoch Times Staff, Oct 24, 2009 -

Shi Honghui, center, was served court papers after being sued by a group of Falun Gong practitioners for torture and genocide

NEW YORK—In a bittersweet moment for Crystal Chen, the man who signed away five years of her life to a forced labor camp was served with a lawsuit in Manhattan on Oct. 22.

Shi Honghui, director of forced labor camps in China’s Guangdong province, is responsible for torture, genocide, and other gross human rights violations, according to the complaint. He was approached by a professional process server while visiting Pier 16 in lower Manhattan.

Upon being served, Shi threw the documents to the ground. He later fled the scene in a chartered bus, leaving other members of his party stranded at the pier, according to Wang Zhiyuan, spokesperson for the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong and witness to the scene.

Wang was part of the team that tracked Shi to New York and ensured the papers were served.

“All those criminals who actively participate in the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners have been documented, and in the end they will find it hard to escape the dragnet of the law,” Wang said.

Beginning in August 2000, Chen was sent without trial twice to Chatou Women’s “Re-education Through Labor” Camp in Guangdong’s capital city of Guangzhou for her belief in Falun Gong, where she spent a total of over five years. Among the documents committing her to the camp were ones signed personally by Shi, according to the Falun Dafa Information Center.

For 36-year-old Chen, a Queens resident since May and United Nations refugee, the lawsuit is significant, but cold comfort when she knows countless other Falun Gong practitioners are still being detained and tortured in Guangdong.

“It was an opportunistic moment,” she said of Shi being served. “It’s a good chance for him to know that the international community will hold him responsible for all the bad things he has done.”

Her own experience of severe beatings, forced-feeding, and prolonged sleep deprivation included one incident that remains stark in her memory.

Room 212 in the Tianhe District Detention Center, Guangzhou City, China, was the scene of Chen’s first experience of torture. She was thrown on the floor of her cell and four large males from China’s notorious 610 Office held her limbs down.

A water bottle was cut in half to be used as a funnel. A one-pound bag of salt was poured inside the bottle, a small amount of water added. Chen’s eyes were covered with a dirty towel. Guards shoved the opening of the bottle against Chen’s teeth and tried to pry her mouth open with a used toothbrush. She was obstinate—she knew the salt could kill her.

“The salt went everywhere into my mouth and up my nose,” Chen said in a previous interview. “I vomited salt and blood for the following days and could not eat. My gums were full of blood, I could hardly talk. They still handcuffed me.”

Six days after her release from this detention center, a male practitioner, Gao Xianmin, died after being subjected to the same high-density salt torture……. (more details from The Epochtimes)

By Gu Qing’er, Epoch Times Staff,  Oct 24, 2009-

An ongoing struggle between residents and a local ceramic factory over pollution has erupted in protesting, arrests, and riot police presence. When a dozen resident activists of Paibian Village, Jiedong County, Guangdong Province were arrested the morning of Oct. 22, thousands went to the local regime officials, demanding their release.

An Epoch Times reporter interviewed villagers at the scene. According to a villager surnamed Lu, there were no legal procedures, and no one knew where the arrested villagers were taken. He said there were more than 2,000 people who joined the protest.

Another protester, surnamed Chen, said that his friend’s husband was not only arrested, but his cash and cell phone were confiscated.

“What kind of policemen were they! They did not show any ID, but just broke down the door and dashed into the house. I saw policemen taking one woman away in her underwear,” Chen said.

“It’s quite chaotic, and riot police are here,” he said. “The head official is not coming out to talk to us.”

Victims of Factory Pollution

Villagers complain that the exhaust from a ceramic factory has been jeopardizing the quality of life and health of local residents.

“The exhaust smells like disinfectants. It’s horrible and makes me dizzy,” Chen said. “My neighbor’s bamboo shoots stopped growing, and the school children have to cover their mouths and noses.”

The ceramic factory in question is located less than 170 feet from a residential area and an elementary school with 900 students. Students are reported to have symptoms of coughing, sore throats, dizziness, and chest pain.

There is no tap water in the village and residents drink from wells they have dug. The factory also releases waste water into the ground, polluting local sources of water. Residents have complained about loud noises from the factory as well.

Even neighboring villages are affected—residents complain that wind-born pollutants have caused a large number of crops to wither.
Taking the Issue into their Own Hands

Villagers at first approached the Bureau of Environmental Protection with their complaints, and were told the factory was being monitored and was unlicensed due to its failure to meet environmental standards. Local government officials took no action to assist the residents, and neither did the factory respond to complaints.

Two months ago, residents of the affected villages determined they would initiate action on their own. Thousands cooperated to set up roadblocks which stopped the factory from transporting materials. They also demanded that the ceramic factory move out of their area.

A fight broke out between residents and the factory owners the evening of Aug. 9. A resident told The Epoch Times that the factory owner threatened to run down residents with trucks. He also threatened to blow up an oil tank in the factory that would cause the whole village to burn.

The resident also reported that the owner bragged he had paid a town hall official a million yuan, and “he was not worried about us.”

- The Epochtimes

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)

Radio Free Asia, 2009-10-23 -

HONG KONG— Authorities in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong have detained four villagers following clashes this week between police and local residents over a disputed sale of farmland which left six people in hospital.

Work on a planned economic development zone in Shuidong township near Guangdong’s Maoming city has halted following the standoff, which villagers said left three people seriously injured.

“The villagers broke through the perimeter wall of the construction site,” a local resident who attended the protest said.

“The wall collapsed. We haven’t seen any workers going in or out, so it seems as if work has stopped for the time being.”

“Things are normal in the village now. No one is protesting.”

Blockade

Clashes broke out Tuesday when more than 100 villagers converged on the construction site to block the way of construction workers and machinery.

An official who answered the phone at the Shuidong No. 1 Detention Center Thursday confirmed that some people were being held there following the clashes.

But he said, “I can’t tell you what they are being charged with or when they will be released. You will have to call the police for that.”

An employee who answered the phone at the local police station declined to answer questions about the incident.

“The government took away our land, so we were going to snatch it back again,” a resident of Dianbai village near Maoming city surnamed Wu said.

“But they wouldn’t let us have it.”

He said around 100 villagers had marched to the site to get in the way of construction work.

“There were older people, of 50 or 60, women, elderly, and children. All went along,” Wu said.

“The clashes started when we tried to stop work on the site. The police were beating up a lot of people, and many were injured. There are still a few people in the People’s Hospital. There were about 50 police officers,” he added……. (More details from Radio Free Asia)

Reporters Without Borders, 22 October 2009 -

Reporters Without Borders calls for the release of three young Tibetans from the village of Dara who have been held in Nagchu county since 1 October, when they were arrested in nearby Sogdzong county for allegedly sending information about Tibet to contacts abroad via the Internet.

The police have not allowed the three – identified as Gyaltsen, 25, Nymia Wangchuk, 24, and Yeshe Namkha, 25 – to have any contact with their families since their arrest.

“The Internet is monitored, censored and manipulated more in Tibet than in other Chinese provinces,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Despite the risks, Tibetan Internet users continue to transmit information, especially to the diaspora and human rights groups. It is deplorable that the Chinese police devote so much energy to identifying and arresting ordinary Internet users.”

The three young people allegedly used QQ, a Chinese instant messaging service, to send photos of the Dalai Lama and speeches by him. It appears that the Bureau of Public Security had been monitoring their online activities for some time. The population of Sogdzong country complain of police harassment, including frequent ID checks.

The monks in Sog Tsandan monastery, for example, were forced by the police to attend patriotic meetings with the authorities and were forbidden to observe their end-of-summer retreat (in which they stay within the monastery to avoid harming the insects that emerge at that time of the year).

Several bloggers and other Internet users have been arrested in Tibet in recent months. They include Pasang Norbu, arrested in Lhasa on 12 August for looking at online photos of the Tibetan flag and Dalai Lama, and Gonpo Tserang, a guide sentenced to three years in prison in June on charges of inciting separatism and “communicating outside the country” for sending emails and SMS messages about the March 2008 protests in Tibet.

- Reporters Without Borders

Human Rights Watch, October 21, 2009 -

(New York) – The Chinese government should immediately account for all detainees in its custody and allow independent investigations into the July 2009 protests in Urumqi and their aftermath, Human Rights Watch said in a new report on enforced “disappearances” released today.

The 44-page report, “‘We Are Afraid to Even Look for Them’: Enforced Disappearances in the Wake of Xinjiang’s Protests,” documents the enforced disappearances of 43 Uighur men and teenage boys who were detained by Chinese security forces in the wake of the protests.

“The cases we documented are likely just the tip of the iceberg,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The Chinese government says it respects the rule of law, but nothing could undermine this claim more than taking people from their homes or off the street and ‘disappearing’ them – leaving their families unsure whether they are dead or alive.”

Last week, Xinjiang judicial authorities started trials of people accused of involvement in the protests. Nine men have already been sentenced to death, three others to death with a two-year reprieve, and one to life imprisonment.

Human Rights Watch research has established that on July 6-7, 2009, Chinese police, the People’s Armed Police, and the military conducted numerous large-scale sweep operations in two predominantly Uighur areas of Urumqi, Erdaoqiao, and Saimachang. On a smaller scale, these operations and targeted raids continued at least through mid-August.

The victims of “disappearances” documented by Human Rights Watch were young Uighur men. Most were in their 20s, although the youngest reported victims were 12 and 14 years old. It is possible that some Han Chinese also became victims of “disappearances” and unlawful arrests. However, none of the more than two dozen Han Chinese residents of Urumqi interviewed by Human Rights Watch provided any information about such cases.

According to witnesses, the security forces sealed off entire neighborhoods, searching for young Uighur men. In some cases, they first separated the men from other residents, pushed them to their knees or flat on the ground, and, at least in some cases, beat the men while questioning them about their participation in the protests. Those who had wounds or bruises on their bodies, or had not been at their homes during the protests, were then taken away. In other cases, the security forces simply went after every young man they could catch and packed them into their trucks by the dozens……. (more details from Human Rights Watch)

bclocalnews.com, October 20, 2009 -

I was sentenced to six years in prison for “anti-revolutionary mobilization” in 1990 simply because I wrote many letters to all levels of the Chinese regime opposing the TianAnMen Massacre in 1989. I fled China to live in Canada, a country I admire – where I can write letters without fear of being imprisoned for expressing my views.

But I am shocked and saddened to see Canadian politicians continuously kow-towing to the Communist murderers.

While they believe that they are pleasing the Chinese voters, they are not. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) front organizations who claim to be representing the Chinese community but are really the voice of the Chinese Embassy do not represent me, nor the majority of Chinese Canadians who came to Canada for freedom.

Recently some politicians in Ottawa paid tribute to the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Communist regime. Shame on them. China has a glorious 5,000 years history, not 60 years. The Communist regime does not represent China. The Communist history is not China’s history. Couldn’t those few Canadian politicians figure it out?

In 1949 when the Communists got power they began to kill immediately and they never stopped. They have killed more people (70 million) than Hitler and Stalin combined. They are still killing and persecuting now – Tibetans, Uighurs Underground Christians, Falun Gong practitioners, rights defenders, people who hold different opinions, and more. Instead of praising the Chinese Communists, Canadian politicians should be educating themselves and the people they represent about the repressive and deceiving nature of the Chinese Communist regime.

October 1 should have been a day of mourning and remembrance, not celebration, for the tens of millions of Chinese killed, tortured, and imprisoned and for the 1.3 billion still oppressed.

The Canadian politicians praising the Chinese Communist Party murderous regime are “useful idiots’ in the minds of the Communist cadres.

Steven Shi,

Ottawa, Ontario

- bclocalnews.com

NTDTV, 2009-10-20 -

A former Chinese judge and university professor has been found guilty of “subversion of state power” and given a 10-year prison sentence. Guo Quan had challenged China’s one-party rule.

Guo had been detained several times since 2007 for things like posting articles on the Internet that called for a democratic system in China. In 2008, he founded the New Democracy Party of China.

Guo’s online postings eventually became a target of China’s Internet police, and he was fired from his job at Nanjing Normal University. Last November, he was arrested in Nanjing and has been detained ever since.

On Friday, the Suqian Intermediate People’s Court in Jiangsu Province found Guo guilty of so-called “subversion of state power.” The ill-defined charge is often used by the communist regime to suppress political dissidents.

One legal expert told Sound of Hope Radio that the verdict is against China’s own constitution.

[Professor Zhang Zanning, Chinese Law Expert]:
“This is like the modern literary inquisition. Legally, it doesn’t have a foot to stand on. Doesn’t China’s constitution allow the freedom of expression and the freedom of association? So this verdict violates the constitution.”

- NTDTV

By Rana Foroohar | NEWSWEEK,  Oct 17, 2009 -

The conventional wisdom is that China is steaming through the global financial crisis by building on the momentum generated by its 30-year boom. Indeed, ever since it sailed through the last big global crisis—the Asian contagion 10 years ago—Beijing has been feted for uniquely steady helmsmanship in financial storms. So perhaps it’s natural for forecasters to assume that the Chinese supertanker of state is not turning sharply now, particularly since it continues to grow rapidly even as other economies sink in the recession. Yet this crisis is different—bigger and more damaging than any seen in generations—and it is exposing limits and forcing change in just about every key piece of the China model: the supremacy of the one-party state, the smart economic management, the export-driven growth, the emerging consumer class, the burgeoning private sector, the headlong focus on growth at any environmental cost, and the drive to build world-class companies. What follows is a look at why these common assumptions about China are increasingly inaccurate or just plain wrong.

Myth No. 1: THE COMMUNIST PARTY IS A MONOLITH.

No, the financial crisis is splitting the party, pitting the rural populists against the urban growth-firsters. The populists include the current top two, President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, who favor slower growth, distributed more evenly to poorer rural Western regions, governed with a more careful eye to protecting the environment and less devotion to the free market. Opposed to them are the elite factions based in urban coastal cities, led by Shanghai, who want high-speed growth, more freedom for the free market, and greater support for entrepreneurs and the private sector. While it’s too early to tell which faction will win out, it’s clear that the new leadership will take China in new and possibly unexpected directions. “Perhaps the biggest myth about China is that it is only developing economically,” says Cheng Li, a China expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “In fact, it’s also evolving politically.”

Myth No. 2: THE COMMUNISTS ARE BRILLIANT ECONOMIC MANAGERS.

On the day in September 2008 when Lehman Brothers fell, China began planning the swift rollout of a $600 billion stimulus that would prove to be the largest (as a share of GDP), swiftest, and, many say, most effective in the world. The results—China continues to grow at a world-beating pace, now 8 percent—have confirmed the reputation of the party elders as macro maestros. While most economists agree that Beijing has done a strong job of solving the short-term problem, which was how to keep growth high enough to offset massive unemployment and subsequent political unrest, there is growing unease about how the massive stimulus could distort the economy in the long term. China has become an economy driven almost entirely by state investment, which in the first half of 2009 accounted for 88 percent of GDP growth—a share for which it is hard to find any parallel, in any country, at any time.

The dangers of this lopsided boom are real. The pro-market faction worries that the liberalization of financial markets and the privatization of strategic sectors (which include most of the richest industries such as banking, telecoms, and construction) are being forgotten in favor of “bridge to nowhere”–style projects. Even government officials now admit that 60 percent or more of the stimulus money has ended up in stock and real-estate markets, fueling worries about dangerous new asset bubbles. In some coastal cities, property sales are three times what they were last year; the Shanghai stock market is up over 60 percent this year. “It’s just a stopgap measure—all the stimulus has been concentrated in building new infrastructure and reheating the property sector,” says Chinese independent economist Andy Xie.

This could spell trouble for Hu and Wen. The Chinese government debt, once negligible, is now officially about 30 percent of GDP, but some Western economists put the real figure as high as 70 percent. While these figures are still low compared with Western nations (the U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio will reach about 100 percent next year), they have Chinese politicians fretting. Last month Wen told a group of VIPs at the World Economic Forum in Dalian that China’s rebound was “unstable, unbalanced, and unconsolidated.” A week earlier Chi Fulun, a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference was blunter: “Chinese leaders,” he said in an interview, “should rethink the country’s reform package.”…… (more details from Newsweek)