April 2006 Archives
BBC News
April 30, 2006
The state-controlled Catholic church in China has ignored the Vatican's wishes and consecrated a new bishop.
Father Ma Yingling was consecrated as bishop of Kunming at a ceremony in the southwestern Yunnan province on Sunday.
The Vatican had called for a delay in the appointment over concerns the bishop is inexperienced and too closely aligned with China's communist regime.
The Chinese Church does not recognise the Vatican's power to appoint bishops, causing tension between the two sides.
BBC News
April 29, 2006
The Vatican has asked China's state-controlled Catholic Church to halt the ordination of a bishop who has not been approved by Pope Benedict XVI.
Father Ma Yingling is to be ordained as bishop of Kunming on Sunday.
The Chinese Church does not recognise the Vatican's right to name bishops, although recent appointments have been made with the agreement of both sides.
The request to postpone the ordination was made by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Hong Kong, Cardinal Joseph Zen.
"Trying to force the clergymen to carry out the ordination ceremony before the (Roman Catholic) Church's approval would be deliberately wrecking China-Vatican negotiations," he told Hong Kong radio.
By Ullrich Fichtner | | SPIEGEL online (Deutschland)
April 26, 2006
Each day, tens of thousands of communist Chinese peasants stream into Macau, the Las Vegas of Asia, to bet their entire lifesavings in the hope of a better future. But the monetary blessings of capitalism they dream of are at best elusive.
After spending five days in Macau and with only 230 yuan (€23) left in her purse, Chen Xi Mei decides she's had enough of the former Portuguese colony and Asian gambling Mecca. So she sets out for her dusty rural Chinese village, which is a 16-hour bus ride and one-hour walk away. The cloth-covered, wheeled suitcase she's pulling along as she makes her way to the border terminal for buses heading to Zhuhai contains a few articles of clothing, a mobile phone, paper tissues -- in short, everything she owns. Nothing remains of all the hard-earned money she had saved, and yet nothing has become of her dream of a better life.
Chen walks through Macau like someone crossing a fairground in broad daylight, past the Tsai Shen Casino, where peasants play baccarat 24-7 and past the dark temple of the Lisboa Casino, its portals crowned with light bulbs like some jester's cap. She sees the brand-new, shimmering, copper-clad Wynn Casino building, and she sees the mirrored, gold-colored walls of the Sands out by the docks for ferries to Hong Kong. The colorful imitation ruins on the beach, images of antiquity and the wealth of pharaohs -- all things anyone can have -- with a little luck, that is.
Her route takes her through streets lined with jewelers and pawn shops, where winners show off and losers go begging, where bleach-blonde Ukrainian women saunter from one pimp to the next and young girls from all over China take their new breasts, recently enlarged for 4,500 yuan (€450) a piece, for a walk.
By Rupert Wingfield-Hayes | BBC News
April 27, 2006
The completion of the Tibet railway is being hailed in China as one of the world's great engineering marvels.
The longest high-altitude railway in the world, it will ease access to the remote region. Test runs are due to begin on 1 July.
Tibet's extraordinary isolation has kept it poor. Education levels and life expectancy fall well behind the rest of China. But that isolation has also helped to preserve Tibet's unique culture and way of life.
The arrival of the railway will bring tremendous change. China's communist rulers say it will open up Tibet, bringing greater prosperity for its entire people. Detractors say the opening of the railway is the death knell of an independent Tibetan culture.
"It doesn't feel like our home any more"
Sedeng - Tibetan shop owner
The Epoch Times
April 26, 2006
Sky TV goes undercover
Sky TV aired a report last week that confirms important claims The Epoch Times has made in its own investigations into organ harvesting in China.
This report verifies that:
organs for transplantation are very plentiful in China;
they are available on demand;
the organs are supplied from prisoners;
the prisoners are killed after they are found to match a patient who is awaiting a donor organ.
Reporter Dominic Waghorn and at least one other staff member from Sky TV visited the Orient Organ Transplantation Center in Beijing with a hidden camera, posing as someone whose father needed a liver.
Waghorn begins his report by noting that in China, unlike the West, there is "a seemingly endless supply of livers…the reasons why are deeply sinister."
The nurse who welcomes him at the hospital cheerfully explains that their hospital can get organs "the fastest" because it has the " best connections." Waghorn explains the hospital publicly admits its links to China's paramilitary police.
By REUTERS | The New York Times
April 27, 2006
BEIJING (Reuters) - A Chinese Internet writer has been charged with attempting to ``subvert state power'' for backing a movement by exiled dissidents to hold free elections for a new democratic government, his lawyer said on Thursday.
Yang Tianshui, 45, faces up to 15 years in prison for posting essays on the Internet supporting the ``Velvet Action of China,'' Attorney Li Jianqiang said by telephone.
Named after the ``Velvet Revolution'' that peacefully overthrew communism in the former Czechoslovakia, the movement held an online ballot for government leaders last year. But it attracted scant interest, with just over 500 people casting a vote.
The trial of Yang, who has been in custody since last December, is due to be in Nanjing, capital of the eastern coastal province of Jiangsu, in May.
Prosecutors could not immediately be reached for comment.
If convicted, Yang, a member of the China chapter of International PEN, would be the second writer to be jailed this year.
At least five writers were jailed for up to 10 years last year as part of a government crackdown on free speech, according to the China chapter of International PEN, an association founded in Britain in 1921 to defend freedom of speech.
Yang was also accused of illegally receiving overseas financial assistance and plotting to form the Jiangsu and Anhui provincial chapters of the outlawed China Democracy Party, the lawyer said.
Yang has already served 10 years in prison for ''counter-revolutionary'' crimes, or subversion. He was released in 2000.
By Tim Luard | BBC News
April 25, 2006
Many Tibetans believe that only the Dalai Lama can save Tibet from extinction.
But even a Dalai Lama is mortal. And they are deeply anxious about what will happen when the present one dies.
For Tibetans, he is not just a Buddhist monk, a god and a king - the latest in a centuries'-long line of spiritual and temporal rulers - but a larger-than-life symbol of their unique civilisation.
For the past 50 years, from his sanctuary on the other side of the Himalayas, the 14th Dalai Lama has kept alive their dreams of survival as a separate people.
"The Chinese definitely want to see the Dalai Lama die so they can have a Dalai Lama of their own"
Kalsang Phuntsog Godrokba, Tibetan Youth Congress
By REUTERS | The New York Times
April 23, 2006
BEIJING (Reuters) - A Tibetan youth considered by rights groups to be the world's youngest political prisoner turns 17 on Tuesday, 11 years after disappearing from public view when he was named the Himalayan region's second-ranking religious figure.
The whereabouts of Gendun Choekyi Nyima -- who human rights watchdogs say has been living under house arrest since Tibet's exiled god-king, the Dalai Lama, appointed him the 11th Panchen Lama -- is one of China's most zealously guarded state secrets.
A senior Canadian official pressed for access to Nyima during a visit to Tibet this month, but it fell on deaf ears.
Chinese officials parroted their assertion that Nyima was ''safe and comfortable and wishes to maintain his privacy,'' said the Canadian, who requested anonymity.
The Chinese cabinet spokesman's office did not reply to a list of questions submitted by fax a week ago.
The Epoch Times (Australia)
April 22, 2006
Almost three weeks after the Epoch Times published reports about a Chinese concentration camp where organs were being harvested from Falun Gong practitioners, China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs dismissed the reports and openly invited the international community to conduct an investigation.
In response to this invitation, Sydney-based reporter Linda Xu from the Sound of Hope radio station went to the Chinese consulate in Sydney on April 19 to lodge a visa application. Her application was immediately rejected.
Ms Xu was told by an official at the visa office that reporters entering China need an invitation letter from the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Ms Xu explained that at a press conference on March 28, Qin Gang, spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had openly invited the international community to conduct an investigation.
The official replied: "This is not possible. Why don't you ask Qin Gang for an invitation letter yourself!" He returned the application documents to Ms Xu. When she tried to explain further, a consular security guard told her to leave.
Editorial - The New York Times
Sunday, April 23, 2006
It's hard to imagine how a meeting between the leaders of the world's two most powerful nations could seem insignificant. But that's what happened by the time the White House finished downgrading the protocol, lowering the expectations and erasing the substance for President Hu Jintao's visit.
It's not as if presidents of China came to the White House very often. (The last time was nine years ago.) And it's not as if there were no issues of immense importance. (Just take the world's dwindling fossil fuels and growing nuclear arsenals, then move on to trade and human rights.)
Surely Presidents Bush and Hu could have given the impression that they were talking over important matters. Instead all they appeared to do was agree to disagree and offer up a series of smiling photo ops in which there was no substance behind the smiles. Mr. Bush could not even manage to give Mr. Hu the state dinner he wanted, so the Chinese leader made his first stop in the other Washington and met with the head of Microsoft before the leader of the free world.
Any progress, no matter how small, on the really big issues like energy and nonproliferation would have required the two presidents to spend major political capital. But no capital spending plans were announced — perhaps because Mr. Bush does not have a lot to spend and Mr. Hu is not willing to dip into his own account. Or perhaps that might have gotten in the way of the choreography, which a Falun Gong protester managed to disrupt anyway.
BBC News
April 21, 2006
China's official media has not covered any controversial aspect of President Hu Jintao's US visit.
Chinese TV channels broadcasting live coverage of the White House ceremony welcoming President Hu tried to make sure no one saw a Falungong protester shouting at him.
Shanghai's Oriental Satellite TV was showing President Hu beginning to speak, when background shouting was faintly heard.
The video was quickly interrupted as the channel switched back to the studio anchorwoman, who summed up the leaders' speeches in an apparent effort to prevent the noise from being heard.
China's state-run flagship channels CCTV-1 and CCTV-4 chose not to carry the events live, preferring correspondents' summaries. At the time of the heckling incident, CCTV-4 was showing a special programme on President Hu's visit entitled "Voice of Peace From China".
CCTV-1 and CCTV-4, respectively the domestic and international channel of Chinese state television, carried the president's visit as their top items in their Friday news programmes.
They blocked the signal
CNN
But all their bulletins airbrushed out the heckling incident and some even dropped the White House welcoming ceremony altogether, preferring reports on Mr Hu speaking to business leaders in Seattle and visiting Boeing. Major international news networks CNN and BBC, which can be seen in upscale residential compounds and hotels mainly catering to foreigners, were blacked out when footage was about to be shown of Mr Hu being heckled, reports said.
By Jonathan Beale | BBC News
April 21, 2006
It seemed to be going so well. Chinese President Hu Jintao had arrived in the other Washington - State, not DC - happily adapting to his role as the leader of a new global power.
Even his reserve and awkwardness appeared to fade as he rubbed shoulders with the chairman and founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates. The world's new "big spender" with the world's richest man.
President Hu was warmly embraced by the staff of Boeing - buoyed by his promises to buy more of their planes. He even donned a baseball cap!
Was this a sign that these two great countries' mutual suspicions were melting away?
Even the White House had appeared to throw caution to the wind.
Okay, this was not the official state visit that the Chinese government had wanted, but when President Hu arrived in Washington DC he still received a 21-gun salute, a guard of honour and marching bands - all witnessed by every senior figure of the Bush administration.
Blacked out
But it then all unravelled. The Chinese may have been willing to overlook the foul-up as their National Anthem was introduced as that of "the Republic of China" - the other name for Taiwan - the part of China that has rebelled and broken away from the mainland and sought security from the United States.
But to have their president's speech interrupted by not just a protester, but one from the banned quasi-religious group Falun Gong, would have been difficult to swallow.
In Beijing, television screens showing the BBC and CNN went to black as the cameras focused on Wang Wenyi shouting out "President Hu, your days are numbered".
President Bush apologised to his Chinese guest for this unfortunate incident - but it showed the gulf that remains between these two countries.
The Falun Gong protester was only reflecting a wider disgust in Washington over China's human rights record.
By Joseph Kahn | The New York Times
April 21, 2006
WASHINGTON, April 21 — The Chinese president, Hu Jintao, wound up a four-day visit to the United States on Friday with a foreign policy address at Yale that offered an upbeat vision of Chinese-American ties, as the two sides tried to shake off the lingering effects of protocol blunders during the White House reception for Mr. Hu.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington sent a delegation to the White House on Friday to demand a detailed explanation of how an adherent of the Falun Gong spiritual sect, which is banned in China, managed to infiltrate the welcome ceremony for Mr. Hu on the South Lawn of the White House on Thursday and heckle Mr. Hu for several minutes before being escorted away.
While Mr. Hu appeared unfazed by the disruption and continued with his planned events Thursday and Friday, some analysts said the security breach might end up heightening the distrust between the nations that the visit had been intended to dispel.
"I'm worried that this could end up being the legacy of the trip," said Bates Gill, a China specialist at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. "Whether it is perceived as a simple mistake or an intentional slight, it will underscore a pervasive sense of distrust."
The reception for Mr. Hu was further marred when a White House announcer confused the official name of China with that of its archrival, Taiwan, while introducing China's national anthem. Separately, photographs show that as the event ended, President Bush first steered Mr. Hu to leave the podium and then, realizing he had done so prematurely, grabbed the Chinese leader by the arm and pulled him back into the proper position.
The protocol problems may have had more resonance than the nature of the small slights would suggest because Mr. Hu's visit did not achieve any significant breakthroughs and the Chinese always emphasize careful staging of major political events.
By REUTERS | The New York Times
April 20, 2006
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Police in the Chinese financial hub of Shanghai broke up a news conference by a group of haemophiliacs who say they contracted HIV/AIDS through contaminated blood transfusions, an activist said on Thursday. Journalists were detained and police surrounded the hotel where the event was taking place, said Wan Yanhai, the widely respected director of the Beijing Aizhixing Institute of Health Education.
Calls to the Shanghai city government and police were not answered.
By Jill McGivering | BBC News
April 19, 2006
Top British transplant surgeons have accused China of harvesting the organs of thousands of executed prisoners a year to sell for transplants.
The British Transplantation Society condemned the practice as unacceptable and a breach of human rights, in a statement released on Wednesday.
The move comes less than a week after Chinese officials publicly denied the practice.
In March, China said it would ban the sale of human organs from July.
'Selection'
The British Transplantation Society says an accumulating weight of evidence suggests the organs of thousands of executed prisoners in China are being removed for transplants without consent.
Professor Stephen Wigmore, who chairs the society's ethics committee, told the BBC that the speed of matching donors and patients, sometimes as little as a week, implied prisoners were being selected before execution.
Chinese officials deny the allegations.
Just last week a Chinese health official said publicly that organs from executed prisoners were sometimes used, but only with prior permission and in a very few cases.
But widespread allegations have persisted for several years - including from international human rights groups.
BBC News
April 17, 2006
The Chinese authorities say they are putting up a huge statue of Chairman Mao Zedong in Tibet. The 35-ton memorial is being built to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the former leader's death.
It is being erected in Gonggar County, near the Tibetan capital Lhasa, China's state-run news agency Xinhua said.
The statue will rise 7m from a 5m pedestal strengthened to withstand earthquakes. Mao Zedong ordered the Chinese takeover of Tibet in 1950.
The statue will be the central landmark of Gonggar County's Shangcha square, which covers about 40,000 sq metres, and is scheduled for completion in July.
According to the Beijing authorities, the statue of Mao Zedong will be the largest of its kind in China and the first in Tibet.
Changsha, capital of Hunan province and Mao's hometown, has donated 6.5m yuan ($811,000; £461,000) towards the cost of the plaza and statue, Xinhua reported.
"Many Tibetan people suggested we should have a statue of Chairman Mao to show our gratitude," a local Communist Party official told Xinhua:
Mixed reaction
The BBC's Daniel Griffiths in China says the statue is likely to get a mixed reaction from many Tibetans.
From Beijing's perspective, the area has been part of China for centuries. But for many, the Chinese government is an occupying power which has shown scant regard for human rights or for Tibet's unique culture, our correspondent says.
Communist troops marched into Tibet in 1950. Nine years later, the region's spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, fled into exile along with tens of thousands of his followers after a failed uprising against Chinese rule.
Since then, China has exerted tight control over the region and this new statue of Mao Zedong is another reminder of Beijing's influence there, our correspondent adds.
By REUTERS | The New York Times
April 17, 2006
China has issued a series of notices in the past week aimed at regulating media content in an attempt to control an increasingly free-wheeling news environment.
But media watchers said that rather than signaling a new tightening, the rules simply follow a trend toward regulating a business whose myriad blogs, tabloids and television dramas present a challenge to the ruling Communist Party's desire the control the flow of information.
The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television reissued notices restricting local broadcasters' use of foreign news footage and the General Administration of Press and Publications (GAPP) introduced restrictions on foreign magazines publishing Chinese versions.
And in a twist, news Web sites collectively agreed to censor themselves to eradicate pornography and violence along with other ``unhealthy content.''
``When they feel there is a problem they adopt measures to block or control,'' said Jiao Guobiao, a journalism professor who lost his job after denouncing China's propaganda controls.
``This is their consistent thought. I don't think it has any new significance.''
The regulations follow a series of moves over the past year that included sacking editors of some of China's bolder publications and forcing bloggers and chat-room participants to use their real names.
They have also attracted the attention of human rights groups, who say U.S. companies have been complicit in providing information that resulted in the detention of Internet writers and urged President George W. Bush to raise the issue with his Chinese counterpart, Hu Jintao, when they meet later this week.
Reporters Without Borders
April 14, 2006
Reporters Without Borders today called on World Trade Organisation (WTO) member states to oppose a series of restrictive measures just adopted by the Chinese government which are a complete violation of WTO principles and will jeopardise the liberalisation and development of the Chinese media. China joined the WTO in 2001.
"The credibility of China’s integration into the WTO requires a change in its policies towards the media," Reporters Without Borders said. "We call on member countries, especially the United States, which President Hu Jintao is visiting this month, to raise this crucial issue within the WTO."
The press freedom organisation added : "The media sector should be included in the next session of Doha round negotiations. This reinforcement of protectionism by China is clearly aimed at increasing control of media content and is a new violation of press freedom."
Veuillez lire en français:
【大纪元4月13日讯】我们注意到，在大纪元新闻网3月9日曝光中国沈阳苏家屯活体摘除法轮功学员器官事件后，4月12日世界主要的几个大通讯社都发出了一条新闻，内容涉及中国国务院新闻办公室4月11日举行的记者会，中国辽宁省沈阳市苏家屯区政府官员和苏家屯血栓中心医院的官员，否认当地关押大量的法轮功学员，以及否认曾经有过活体摘取法轮功学员内脏器官牟利的事情发生。
这几位官员指责大纪元造谣，诬衊当地政府部门和医院，甚至表示可能起诉大纪元时报。所以我们对这个事情做出一个公开的澄清。
在这里，我们想首先强调的一点是，我们，无论是作为记者或者是作为一个普通的人类来说，我们都并不希望我们所报导的事情是真实发生的，我们有时甚至希望整个事件根本就是一个误会，并不存在。但不幸的是，我们越是进行深入的调查，我们越确信这个事件是真实的，这也是我们大纪元全体工作人员感到悲哀的地方。
In a press conference yesterday in Beijing, Zhang Yuqin, the deputy director of the Liaoning Thrombosis Treatment Center, claimed that his hospital is considering suing The Epoch Times. Tipped off by three brave individuals who risked their lives in order to tell the truth, we have reported the harvesting of the organs from thousands of living Falun Gong practitioners at his hospital and associated hospitals in the Sujiatun district of Shenyang City, Liaoning Province.
Subsequent investigations have corroborated the statements of these witnesses.
We first reported this horror on March 9. More than a month later the Chinese Communist regime chose to respond. Why the wait? We have reports from Sujiatun that the time was spent executing or shipping out the Falun Gong practitioners still held there and creating a cover-up.
If the media travel to Sujiatun, they will find a Potemkin Village, ready for inspection.
The Chinese Health Ministry lied about SARS. The Chinese Communist regime still claims no one was killed in the Tiananmen Square massacre. Now the Chinese regime has decided to lie about the organ harvesting factories it has set up around China.
BBC News
April 14, 2006 By Peter Feuilherade - BBC Monitoring
New rules ban the use of footage acquired from foreign satellite TV and other channels that are not state-run.
Stations have been told they should only use news reports provided by the state-run China Central Television and China Radio International.
The rules also say that historical soap operas involving "major or sensitive" issues must get official approval.
Taboo issues for TV drama include political, military and religious themes.
A notice issued by the Chinese State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) on 10 April also demands that local government offices overseeing TV drama productions submit monthly reports to ensure the shows stick to pre-approved scripts.
By Jim Yardley | The New York Times
April 14, 2006
GUOJIATUO, China — He Qingzhi's teenage daughter, Yuan, and her two friends lived on the same street near the Yangtze River, attended the same middle school and were crushed to death in the same traffic accident late last year. After that, the symmetry ended: under Chinese law, Yuan's life was worth less than the others'.
Mr. He, 38, who has lived in this town in central China for 15 years, was told that his neighbors were entitled to roughly three times more compensation from the accident because they were registered urban residents while he was only a migrant worker.
"I was shocked," said Mr. He, as he sorted through legal papers in his apartment recently while his wife sobbed in the next room. "The girls are about the same age. They all went to the same school. Why is our life so cheap?"
Outraged, Mr. He and his lawyer are considering a lawsuit, saying that the decision was discriminatory and that the family was entitled to full compensation under the Chinese Constitution. The problem with that argument is the Chinese Constitution. More Chinese citizens like Mr. He are claiming legal rights and often citing the Constitution, but it is actually a flimsy tool for protecting individual rights.
By The Associated Press | The New York Times
April 13, 2006
BEIJING (AP) -- Thousands of villagers clashed with police in southern China over government plans to tear down sluice gates built for irrigation, leaving one woman dead and several people injured, newspapers and witnesses said Thursday.
About 4,000 villagers gathered Wednesday to stop police from demolishing the pair of gates in Bomei, a village in Guangdong province, and were dispersed with tear gas and water cannons, according to Hong Kong's Ming Pao Daily.
The newspaper and Radio Free Asia, a U.S.-funded broadcaster, said a woman in her 30s was killed. Radio Free Asia said she was hit in the head by a tear gas canister. Ming Pao said at least 10 other people were injured.
The South China Morning Post newspaper said the villagers were armed with ''homemade weapons including petrol bombs'' and fought to keep more than 1,000 police officers from the gates.
An official in Xilu, the town which oversees Bomei, said he was ''unclear'' about the situation and hung up. Telephone calls to government offices in Bomei and to the provincial government were not answered.
By Human Rights In China
April 11, 2006
Human Rights in China (HRIC) has learned that imprisoned dissident Zhao Changqing has again been placed in solitary confinement after refusing to participate in military drills in prison.
HRIC previously reported that last December Zhao had been placed in solitary confinement for more than 40 days after he refused to sing a socialist anthem during the prison’s flag-raising ceremony. Sources in China told HRIC that more recently, Zhao’s elder brother went to visit him in the Shaanxi Province No. 2 Prison, but was refused access on the grounds that Zhao had been placed in solitary confinement again on February 18. Prison guards reportedly said that Zhao was “stubbornly maintaining his incorrect attitude” and had argued with a corrections officer, and for that reason had been placed in solitary confinement for three months.
By Mike Steketee | NEWS.com.au (Australia)
(from: The Australian)
April 4, 2006
THE Falun Gong movement has won two victories against moves by Foreign Minister Alexander Downer to curb their activities.
In response to court action against him, Mr Downer has agreed to stop signing certificates which ban Falun Gong protesters outside the Chinese Embassy in Canberra from displaying fixed banners and making excessive noise, actions he claimed impaired the dignity of the embassy.
In a separate action, the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission has recommended that Mr Downer apologise in writing for breaching the rights to freedom of expression of Falun Gong representative Daniel Clark after he and a colleague were excluded from human rights talks with Australian government officials.
The outcomes are embarrassing for Mr Downer, who was criticised by Falun Gong for going further than any other Western country in bowing to Chinese demands to act against the group.
By Howard W. French | The New York Times
April 11, 2006
XINZHUANG, China — This winter, Liu Xianhong's life was changed for the second time by her infection with AIDS.
The first time was seven years ago, when she discovered that she, along with her newborn son, had contracted the disease through an infusion of contaminated blood given to her during childbirth.
Then late last year, her story was publicized by a leading Chinese journalist, turning one woman's quest for compensation into a national cause célèbre for a new class of advocates who are using the country's legal system to fight for social justice.
Ms. Liu's experience, all but unimaginable as recently as two or three years ago, is increasingly common in China, where a once totalitarian system is facing growing pressure from a population that is awakening to the power of independent organization. Uncounted millions of Chinese, from the rich cities of the east to the impoverished countryside, are pushing an inflexible political system for redress over issues from shoddy health care and illegal land seizures to dire pollution and rampant official corruption.
By Jim Yardley | The New York Times
April 10, 2006
CHONGQING, China, April 7 — One of the many unexpected things about the small graveyard here where Xi Qingsheng buried his mother during the mayhem of the Cultural Revolution is that it still exists.
The rusted front gate, locked for many years, opens into a walled cemetery that amounts to a time capsule from an era the Communist Party wants to forget. Revolutionary slogans, long since discredited, are etched onto huge, ornate tombstones, including the large concrete marker that Mr. Xi built for his mother when he was a teenager.
"It is my obligation to speak about this history," said Mr. Xi, now 54. "It is the Communist Party's crime. Of course, they don't want to talk about it. No one wants to talk about shameful things."
The Epoch Times
April 8, 2006
In an "Urgent Announcement" a special investigative group reports an alarming increase in the number of organ transplants being done in transplant centers throughout China. Published on the Clearwisdom website by the Integrated Committee to Investigate the Secret Sujiatun Concentration Camp, the announcement concludes that the Chinese communist regime is killing detainees in Sujiatun and other concentration camps in an effort to hide the evidence of mass murder and live organ harvesting.
The Integrated Committee's investigation has learned that hospitals and transplant centers in Heilongjiang, Hunan, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Yunnan, Anhui, Shan'xi and Xinjiang are operating overtime to perform transplant operations. This surge in activity is said to be due to the release of information over the past three weeks about the slaughter that has gone on at Sujiatun and other concentration camps in China at least since 2001.
Fuer einen ausfuehrlichen Bericht in Deutsch, bitte hier klicken:
Lea por favor en español:
By Ben Sisario | The New York Times
April 8, 2006
The Rolling Stones are being censored in China, and Mick Jagger is not surprised. "We kind of expected that," he said at a news conference in Shanghai yesterday, the day before the group's first concert on the mainland, The Associated Press reported. "We didn't expect to come to China and not be censored." The Chinese authorities told the Stones not to perform four of their classic songs — "Brown Sugar," "Honky Tonk Woman," "Beast of Burden" and "Let's Spend the Night Together" — as well as "Rough Justice," from their new album, "A Bigger Bang." The Stones appeared to acquiesce to the request. "Fortunately, we have 400 more songs that we can play," said Sir Mick. The Chinese news media have reported that most of the tickets for the Shanghai concert — at $37 to $370, they cost more than the monthly wage for most Chinese — have been sold to foreigners, and Sir Mick remarked sarcastically, "I'm pleased that the Ministry of Culture is protecting the morals of the expat bankers and their girlfriends."
By REUTERS | The New York Times
April 7, 2006
BEIJING (Reuters) - China's publishing authority has quietly introduced new restrictions on foreign magazines issuing Chinese versions, but officials on Friday denied the rules had led to the closure of Rolling Stone magazine's Chinese edition.
A General Administration of Press and Publicationofficial said the group created an ``internal rule'' last year that allows only foreign science and technology magazines to develop Chinese versions through tie-ups with approved local partners.
China's Communist Party rulers have cracked down on increasingly bold reporting by local newspapers and magazines. In August, the government issued a freeze on foreign investment in satellite television and other media ventures.
The GAPP official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the rule would mean sports, entertainment and fashion magazines could not expect approval to enter China's expanding market.
By Joseph Kahn | The New York Times
April 5, 2006
BEIJING, April 5 — Chinese leaders, eager to improve relations with the United States ahead of the maiden visit there by President Hu Jintao this month, have dispatched a large delegation of business and economic officials to display China's buying power and to cool protectionist sentiment in Congress, Chinese officials said Wednesday.
The buying mission, the largest by China since re-establishing diplomatic relations with the United States in 1979, reflects Beijing's view that it may be easier to try to lower economic tensions than to satisfy some other American demands, like doing more to help curtail nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea and reducing human rights abuses at home.
More than 100 business executives joined Wu Yi, China's vice prime minister and economic troubleshooter, on an American tour that began Tuesday in Hawaii and is scheduled to cover 13 states. The trip is expected to result in multibillion-dollar orders for Boeing aircraft, auto parts, computer software, telecommunications equipment, grain, cotton and other products, Chinese officials and the state news media said.
China has practiced such checkbook diplomacy before, notably during the prolonged fight to win American support for its entry into the World Trade Organization in the late 1990's.
By Stephen Gregory - The Epoch Times
April 5, 2006
Whenever Wanqing Huang walks down the streets of New York City, he sees posters for Bodies: The Exhibition and wonders about his younger brother, Xiong Huang.
Wanqing last spoke to Xiong on April 19, 2003. Xiong was in Shanghai, where he felt the police had identified him. He knew he had to go immediately or be arrested, and planned on leaving the next day. He would call Wanqing once he arrived at a new place. Wanqing never received that call.
Wanqing has searched for his brother ever since.
Human Rights Watch Organization
March 30, 2006
Clarify Legal Status and Allow Immediate Access to Detainees
(New York, March 30, 2006) – The authorities in Sichuan province must allow independent medical professionals and human rights monitors into a prison where five Tibetans have been held in custody without trial for more than six months, Human Rights Watch said today.
The five, detained after the burning of a slaughterhouse in Sichuan province last August, have been held without any charges against them made public and reportedly without access to relatives or defense counsel. Human Rights Watch expressed concern about the physical condition of the men after a sixth detainee was released and found to have gone blind in custody as a result of alleged beatings and lack of access to medical care.
“It’s time for the Chinese government to give a full account of what has happened to these five men, including any charges against them,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Independent doctors and lawyers should be allowed to meet with them to ascertain their condition.”
On August 5, 2005, some 300 Tibetans reportedly burned down a privately-owned slaughterhouse in Manigango, near Kandze, a predominately Tibetan part of Sichuan province. The following day, police and army units detained several dozen people, many of whom had been identified from a videotape taken by slaughterhouse staff during the attack. Most were released later that day, but several were detained. According to eyewitness testimony, those held in custody were beaten and tortured. Additional police and military forces were brought to the area for the express purpose of conducting these beatings.
The Associated Press | The New York Times
April 1, 2006
BEIJING (AP) -- A prominent AIDS activist who accuses Chinese security forces of abducting and holding him for 41 days said Friday he would sue the government for improperly detaining him.
Hu Jia, who was released Tuesday, said it appeared he was taken because he helped spearhead a hunger strike to protest violence against dissidents.
''I can't keep quiet about this,'' Hu said in an interview at a Beijing cafe while plainclothes security agents watched from a distance. ''I must take these actions to file a lawsuit and let them know that the Chinese people will still let their voices be heard.''
Telephones at the Beijing Public Security Bureau, whose officers Hu said took part in the abduction, were not answered Friday.
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