China block on wife of activist
By BBC News
August 24, 2007
The wife of a jailed human rights activist in China has been prevented from leaving the country to pick up an award on his behalf, friends say.
Yuan Weijing had been due to travel to the Philippines to collect a human rights award for her husband, Chen Guangcheng, who was jailed last year.
But fellow activists say the Chinese authorities revoked her passport and stopped her boarding the flight.
Chen Guangcheng was jailed for damaging property and disrupting traffic.
But his supporters say the real reason Mr Chen, who is blind, was sentenced for four years and three months is because he exposed violations linked to China's one-child policy, including forced sterilisations and abortions.
Prestigious award
Yuan Weijing said the authorities told her on Thursday that they had revoked her passport, even though it was still valid.
She said the authorities then attempted to block her journey both from her home in Shandong province and from the house in Beijing where she stayed in overnight.
She was eventually detained at the airport and her luggage removed from the flight, friends said.
Yuan Weijing had been due to collect the award from the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation in Manila - one of Asia's most prestigious honours.
The foundation had named Chen Guangcheng as one of seven winners for his "irrepressible passion for justice in leading ordinary Chinese citizens to assert their legitimate rights under the law".
Mr Chen, 35, has campaigned against what he says are abuses of the Chinese government's one-child policy.
Before being imprisoned, he accused local health workers in Linyi city, in Shandong province, of illegally forcing hundreds of people to have late-term abortions or sterilisations.
China brought in its one-child policy 27 years ago, in a drive to curb population growth, but forced sterilisation and abortion are prohibited.
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China does not deserve 2008 Olympics
by Davee Broth
When police in Beijing recently prevented the wife of an imprisoned Chinese social activist from going to the Philippines to receive a prestigious international humanitarian award on behalf of her husband, the international Olympics community should have been outraged by this brazen Soviet-style thuggery. And yet barely a peep was heard around the world. Even Magsaysay Foundation, a private organization, refused to criticize China.
What is going on here? In the run-up to the 2008 Summer Olympics in China, the Chinese government forcibly prevents a Chinese citizen from travelling to a foreign country to receive a humanitarian lleadership award for
her imprisoned husband -- a 35-year-old blind man who is behind bars for unmasking abuses such as forced sterilizations and women being made to have abortions eight months into term -- and the international Olympics community behaves as if nothing happened. Where is the world's conscience today?
Yuan Weijing is the wife of Chen Guangcheng, and she should be free to travel anywhere in the world. She has a valid passport and a visa from the Philippines government. What China did to her is immoral, unconscienable.
Why did the International Olympics Committee give the 2008 Summer Games to China if this same China is going to make a mockery of the concepts of freedom and justice and morality? It's not as if the IOC wasn't warned.
This incident should really be proof that China does not deserve to host the 2008 Olympics. It's time to call China on the carpet and stop all preparations for next summer's Olympics. A country that does not allow the wife of a jailed man to travel abroad to pick up an international award for her husband is a country that does not deserve to host the Olympics. It's that simple.
The Ramon Magsaysay Foundation, in a statement to the press after the incident came to light, said that regretted that neither Chen nor his wife was able to attend the awards ceremony. However, the foundation added, that as a non-political organization, it respected the right of every country to make decisions regarding the travel of its citizens.
That's called a public relations statement.
Carmencita Abella, president of the Magsaysay Foundation, did say that she was saddened over the Chinese government's barring of Chen's wife, but told a radio reporter in Manila: "We cannot do anything about it. It's a decision of the Chinese government, and we cannot interfere with it".
"It is sad. He could have inspired many by telling his story. Yet even his wife was barred from leaving the country. It's sad that despite the good you do, you earn the ire of local authorities," Abella said. She also told reporters that the foundation will try to find a way to send Chen or his family the US$50,000 prize the foundation is giving to its 2007 awardees.
"Even if [Chen is ]not here, the most we can do is to tell everyone of the good he has done," Abella said.
A Chinese human rights activist inside China, who was familiar with the incident, told foreign reporters: "Chen Guangcheng is an sore spot ...because he exposed the dark secrets of ....forced birth control operations, and his wife keeps exposing the Chinese regime's human rights violations to foreign media. She has revealed to the world facts about the forced birth control, corrupt officials, and the failing judiciary system."
When will the international community wake up to the very "un-Olympics" spirit of the current Chinese communist regime? If China can prevent one of its own citizens from going overseas to pick up international leadership awards, without any rational explanation, then how can the members of the IOC in all good conscience continue to prepare for the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing. What China did to Mrs. Yuan is an outrage, or should be. It's time for an immediate international Olympics boycott.
After this recent incident, the IOC really owes the world an
explanation for how it can continue to play into China's hands.