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By Michael Wines | The New York Times

May 15, 2012

The central government says that the activist Chen Guangcheng is a free man, and has promised him an investigation of the harrowing abuses he suffered at the hands of guards here. Mr. Chen's desperate escape last month from persecution to American protection has embarrassed China's leaders and cast new shadows on their commitment to the rule of law.

But a visit to this municipality in eastern China, where Mr. Chen and his family most recently spent 20 months as prisoners in their own home, offers no hint of a change in the way China deals with its dissidents.

Journalists who sought on Sunday to talk to residents a few hundred yards from Dongshigu, the village in Linyi where Mr. Chen was held captive, were quickly escorted out by thugs in four cars, and later were accosted in a burst of arm-wrenching and name-calling.

Members of the same gang still keep Mr. Chen's mother under siege here. Mr. Chen's nephew faces a charge of attempted murder after he slashed a knife at plainclothes officers who invaded his home and beat him. Lawyers seeking to defend the nephew have been ordered to drop the case or face retribution.

There is no evidence that the government in Beijing ordered this harassment, all of which is illegal under Chinese law. But there is also no any indication that Beijing wants it to stop.

In fact, both rights activists and legal experts say, the system for dealing with dissidents and other troublemakers is geared toward allowing local leaders to ignore the law, with Beijing's sometimes silent assent.

The central government may even reward local leaders for doing so. The reason is that their Communist Party careers depend on meeting a series of performance goals -- from high economic growth to low levels of public unrest -- whose importance far outweigh any gold stars awarded for following the law.

That system gives leaders an incentive to silence troublemakers by any means in order to win high marks for maintaining public stability, one of the most importance performance metrics. It can uncork gushers of money for added security measures to keep control of a high-profile activist like Mr. Chen.

And it can pay off for the local leaders who do the job well. The man Mr. Chen has blamed most for his detention and imprisonment is Li Qun, who was mayor of Linyi from 2003 to 2007. Just a few years before that, Mr. Li was studying public administration at the University of New Haven and an intern to the New Haven mayor, John DeStefano Jr.

Mr. Li has since been promoted to party secretary of Shandong's biggest port, Qingdao, and he sits on the province's Communist Party standing committee, its highest ruling body.

Only when local measures blow up into national or global embarrassments, as they have in Mr. Chen's case, is the central government obliged to step in and order face-saving measures like investigations. In countless other instances, the experts say, Beijing quietly tolerates local officials' lawlessness, and they do so for a simple reason: with rare exceptions, the system is exceedingly efficient at stifling unrest.

Jerome Cohen, a law professor at New York University and an adviser to Mr. Chen, said he was told by a prominent Chinese criminal lawyer that cases like Mr. Chen's were not unusual. "They're only unusual because you know about them," Mr. Cohen said. "I can tell you that there are thousands of cases like this."

To those who study the system, its success makes it unlikely that party leaders will use the embarrassment of the Chen episode to push for changes that could themselves prove destabilizing.

"It would have implications not just in one city or one county, but for the entire country," Fu Hualing, a law professor at Hong Kong University, said in an interview. "This is how they govern the population. If you punish the local government, if you dismiss the officials, then you have to tell all the other local officials that there's a different way of doing things now. And that would be a very fundamental change."

A serious inquiry also would send a signal that when enough publicity and pressure is brought to bear, the Communist Party can be forced to change.

"The main problem with Beijing is that very often, they condone injustices even though they know that the local authorities are in the wrong," said Nicholas Bequelin of Human Rights Watch in Hong Kong. "But many of the problems that come up in these cases are not isolated -- they're endemic. And Beijing fears that backing down on one case would open the floodgates."

Mr. Chen's case, one of the few to get prolonged public scrutiny, offers some insights into the incentives that make repression the tool of choice to deal with dissidents and troublemakers.

A self-taught lawyer who is blind, Mr. Chen crusaded for social justice in his native Shandong Province, and in the process imperiled party officials' record not only on keeping order, but also on another important measure: enforcing the one-child population-control policy.

In August 2005, after he began a deftly publicized compaign to help citizens sue the local government over forced late-term abortions and sterilizations, the reaction was swift: a mob surrounded Mr. Chen's village home, trapping the family inside for weeks. Foreshadowing the events of this spring, Mr. Chen and a nephew eventually escaped to Beijing, only to be seized there and returned home by police officers sent from Shandong.

Neither action by the local authorities was legal. "They used the justification of the one-child policy and stability maintenance," said Pu Zhiqiang, a prominent human rights lawyer.

After the detention generated international headlines, Mr. Cohen said, the public security minister sent emissaries to Shandong to discuss the case. Later, in 2006, Mr. Chen was convicted and imprisoned on what experts said were trumped-up charges, and his detention gained a legal basis.

But when he was released from prison in September 2010, Mr. Chen again found himself and his family sealed inside their village home, this time surrounded by a cordon of fences and security equipment and a contingent of guards around the clock.

For the layers of government overseeing Dongshigu, Mr. Chen's destitute, remote village, detention has become a lucrative industry. Mr. Chen has claimed that his captors told him it cost about $9.5 million annually to keep him under house arrest.

The target of that smothering security is now in a Beijing hospital, preparing to move with his wife and daughter to the United States to study law. But the costly crackdown continues unabated.

Outside Dongshigu, police vans dot the highway, their lights flashing, and carloads of plainclothes guards roam side roads, their license plates sometimes covered in camouflage cloth.

On Sunday, when journalists sought to visit Mr. Chen's home in Dongshigu, about 33 miles from Linyi, they were quickly and roughly escorted away by security guards in plain clothes. Later, in Yinan, the county seat, one man attacked a photographer who was recording a reporter's attempt to question him.

"Get out of China," the man yelled at a Chinese news assistant. "You're not Chinese. You're a traitor."

Shi Da contributed research from Dongshigu, China, and Edy Yin from Beijing.

>> Original Source

 By Mark McDonald

May 7, 2012

The last time this happened, the last time he was grabbed by the Chinese authorities, he was "disappeared" for 60 days. Beatings, shouts, shackles, blindfolds, no sunlight. He said he was banged on the head so severely -- typically with plastic bottles filled with water -- that his memory began to slip. He couldn't remember his Skype password or how the furniture was arranged in his bedroom back home.

So it scared his friends when Jiang Tianyong was detained last Thursday evening while trying to visit his friend Chen Guangcheng in a hospital in Beijing. Mr. Chen, the blind human rights advocate, had left the protection of the U.S. Embassy, and a major diplomatic wrangle over his future was taking place.

Mr. Jiang, a lawyer who has long supported Mr. Chen, had just been detained and was sitting in a police car when Eva Pils, an associate professor of law in Hong Kong, called his cellphone. Mr. Jiang told her about his situation -- "very tense, naturally," she said. Later, ominously, his phone went unanswered.

"He was held for nine hours and was severely beaten," Ms. Pils said in an interview Monday. "At one point he lost the hearing in one ear. He's now under house arrest. They promised he could see a doctor today. We'll see if that happens."

A former schoolteacher who became a trained and certified lawyer -- unlike Mr. Chen who has no formal legal training -- Mr. Jiang has had his legal license indefinitely suspended for his impertinence in confronting the government and defending, among others, Falun Gong members and a dissident Tibetan monk.

Mr. Jiang and Mr. Chen's involvement in a loose network of human rights advocates and unlicensed quasi-lawyers known in China as "barefoot lawyers" was described in an article in 2005 by Jerome A. Cohen, a New York University law professor who remains a trusted adviser to Mr. Chen.

Mr. Jiang was among several colleagues, accomplices and like-minded activists who were picked up in the days following Mr. Chen's daring and now-celebrated escape from house arrest last month. Beijing and Washington have apparently reached an agreement that will allow Mr. Chen and his family to travel to the United States so he can pursue legal studies.

"It was a huge boost to everybody's morale that Chen Guangcheng could escape" from house arrest, said Ms. Pils, who also serves as director of the Center for Rights and Justice at the Chinese University of Hong Kong's Faculty of Law. "We were very happy simply to know that he was safe."

When the revolutions of the Arab Spring were taking shape a year ago, a group of friends and lawyers gathered in Beijing to discuss the plight of Mr. Chen and his family, who were then under detention in their stone farmhouse in rural Shandong Province.

Their meeting was held on Feb. 16, 2011, and within days the authorities began a crackdown against the circle of activists. The Chinese authorities, apparently worried about a possible spillover effect of the unrest in the Middle East, began rounding up dissidents, writers and especially human rights lawyers, "disappearing" them for weeks or months at a time.

"It is clear that the crackdown has reached unprecedented levels -- the threshold that warrants detention by the police has been dramatically lowered," Nicholas Bequelin, senior researcher at Human Rights Watch, said at the time, quoted in a story in the South China Morning Post.

"Now we have entered the most serious wave of political repression."

When it became clear that Mr. Jiang was among those who had been disappeared after the Feb. 16 meeting, the State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley said on March 8 that the United States was "increasingly concerned by the apparent extralegal detention and enforced disappearance of some of China's most well-known laywers and activists."

In interviews with the Voice of America, the Morning Post and other media outlets, Mr. Jiang described his incarceration, which included the water-bottle beatings:

I spent the entire detention period in one room, except that they moved me twice. I did not know where I was because when they moved me they covered my head. Day in and day out, I was under a blinding white light in that room. I do not know how I spent the spring; I didn't see a single ray of sunshine.

They clearly told me, 'Don't expect to go through any legal procedures or go to a detention center, let alone have any illusions of going to court. Forget those dreams.' That's exactly what they said to me. They told me that they could keep me in this state for a month, six months, a year, or even longer.

Meanwhile, in the wake of Mr. Chen's dramatic escapade, Ms. Pils does not expect a rush of Chinese lawyers and dissidents to be suddenly seeking refuge in Western embassies and consulates, following the lead of Mr. Chen whose fame, after all, preceded him.

And for any dissident or activist to leave China for good, she said, was "a hugely difficult decision, even for those who have been badly tortured."

>> Original Source

FEW people understand the predicament of Chen Guangcheng, the blind human rights activist who sought and then gave up American protection in Beijing, as well as I do. No matter what he has decided, whether to stay in China or to leave, he has made both the right choice and the wrong choice. I faced a similarly difficult situation.

In March 1979, I was arrested and spent more than 14 years in solitary confinement for promoting freedom and democracy, and denouncing Deng Xiaoping's attempts to create a new type of dictatorship in China.

In September 1993, one week before the International Olympic Committee voted on Beijing's (ultimately unsuccessful) bid for the 2000 Summer Olympics, the Chinese government released me, six months ahead of schedule. This also coincided with President Bill Clinton's efforts to persuade Congress to delink human rights and trade by making China's most-favored-nation trade status permanent. With Congress deadlocked on the issues, Secretary of State Warren M. Christopher set up a meeting with me in Beijing to seek my views.

When the Chinese government got wind of it, they immediately detained me. The illegal practice, which has recently been written into Chinese law, is called "residence under surveillance." An official, who claimed to represent President Jiang Zemin, came to negotiate with me. He had a simple request: I should not meet with the secretary of state, and if I agreed there was no need to make a public statement about my decision.

"We understand you very well and we never propose anything that you cannot accept," the official said. "As long as you agree to cancel your meeting with the Americans, we'll satisfy whatever requests you make."

Their offer, even though accompanied by veiled threats, sounded very attractive. "We will not arrest any of your people," the official promised, referring to other democratic activists. "Besides, we are going to release another batch of dissidents soon. We'll allow you to establish an independent workers' union as well as an organization to protect Chinese artists. We will not stop you from providing humanitarian assistance to your friends."

It was a tough choice. I leaned toward accepting the conditions, because many of my friends were suffering in jail and others were about to enter jail. In addition, workers and artists needed to organize themselves and protect their own interests. However, I was keenly aware that saying yes to the government would also mean that the impact of international pressure would be diluted. Without such pressure, the Chinese government would step up its repression and I would eventually lose my own freedom.

The next day, I learned over the phone that two of my friends had been released. The news helped me decide. I reluctantly agreed to the offer, taking comfort in the fact that my action had at least benefited some of my friends. As for international pressure, I chose to believe that the Americans would stick with their values and not abandon their Chinese friends.

Therefore, I declined Mr. Christopher's invitation with the flimsy excuse that I was indisposed and needed treatment at a place outside Beijing. To be fair, the Chinese government did release some dissidents, and no new arrests were made until 1995. Wang Dan, a leader of the 1989 student pro-democracy movement, was allowed to move freely following his release. But we had miscalculated the depth of American commitment. After Mr. Christopher left, President Clinton, in a reversal of his campaign promises, agreed to renew China's trade benefits and delink them from human rights policy. As Chinese-American trade relations warmed, the crackdown resumed and I was detained once again.

The next May, Mr. Wang and several dissident friends were also arrested and locked up with me in the name of "residence under surveillance." A friend in the police force warned me, "The two sides have reconciled their differences," referring to China and America. "You need to figure out how to handle the new situation."

In December 1995, after a hasty trial, I was sentenced to another 14 years in prison for "attempts to subvert the government."

Mr. Clinton did keep some of his promises. He managed to bring me to the United States, in 1997, and Mr. Wang, in 1998. He intended to show that the granting of trade benefits and the removal of post-Tiananmen sanctions did not mean the United States would be indifferent to the human rights issues in China.

From my experience, one can see how the Communist Party operates -- why it makes promises and what its so-called guarantees mean. It is obvious that Mr. Chen did not understand the emptiness of these promises, which explains why he initially accepted the government's pledges and left the United States Embassy in Beijing, where he had fled after escaping house arrest in his village, for treatment at a hospital. (On Friday, a tentative agreement that would allow Mr. Chen to travel to the United States as a student was announced.)

In my time, the Communist Party kept its promise for as long as one year because human rights were directly linked with trade. Now that such international pressure does not exist, the party no longer feels the need to keep its word. The Chinese leadership does not fear the United States government; it only fears the loss of its power.

Human rights have been overpowered by economic interests; the cause is as hopeless as that of the big United States trade deficit with China. With the loss of any viable economic means to pressure and penalize the Chinese Communist Party, one has to ask: On what basis does America believe that the Chinese government will keep the promises it makes?

By Ian Johnson | The New York Times

March 31, 2012

Chinastarted a sweeping crackdown of its vibrant social networking media over the weekend, detaining six people, closing 16 Web sites and shutting off the comment function for two gigantic microblog services.

The campaign, which was announced late Friday and put in place in stages through Saturday, was directly linked to the plitical instability that has gripped China since one of its most charismatic politicians, Bo Xilai, lost his post in March. That spurred rumors of a coup, which the government-run Xinhua news agency cited as the reason for the measures.

Xinhua quoted an official with the State Internet Information Office as saying that the sites had spread reports of "military vehicles entering Beijing and something wrong going on in Beijing."

The reports, which Xinhua said were carried on the sites meizhou.net, xn528.com and cndy.com, stemmed from disagreements among senior leaders over whether to remove Mr. Bo, who is being investigated over accusations of corruption and abuse of power. One of his backers, the senior leader Zhou Yongkang, was said to be behind the planned coup, although most Chinese analysts have discounted this as a fabrication.

In addition to the six detainees -- whose names were not released -- Xinhua said others were "admonished and educated" and had promised to "repent."

The sites that were closed were relatively minor players in China.

More noticeable for most Chinese was the decision to shut off the commenting services for microblogs run by the Sina Corporation and Tencent Holdings, which each have 300 million registered accounts.

On Sina's Weibo service, users who tried to comment on posts after 8 a.m. Saturday were greeted with a message saying that microblogs contained "many rumors and illegal, destructive information." The shutdown was necessary, the notice said, "to carry out a concentrated cleanup." It said comments would be allowed starting Tuesday morning.

The measures allowed users to post, but not comment on others' posts.

Even though the actions are linked to the Bo Xilai affair, analysts say the government began to take steps last July, when a high-speed rail crash led to an outpouring of reports and criticism that cast doubt on the government's version of events. Within a week, most critical posts were deleted.

Later last year, the government announced that all microbloggers would have to register undeer thei real name, a measure that was supposed to be enforced by the middle of March. Currently, users with pseudonyms can still post, but analysts say they expect the rule to be slowly enforced over the coming months.

The measures come during a difficult time for China's leadership. Besides the scandal swirling around Mr. Bo, the party is preparing for a once-in-a-decade leadership transition later this year that has stirred up rumors and allegations.

Despite the official rationale that the measures are justified to promote accuracy, analysts note that China's official news media itself often is inaccurate and presents only the government's position.

"The whole idea of rumors and interest in accuracy is a ruse," said David Bandurski with the China Media Project at Hong Kong University. "It's a moniker for control."

>> Original Source

By Eric Pfeiffer | The Sideshow | via UNCENSORED yahoo!news

March 9, 2012

Most people in the world who get into trouble on Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites fail to exercise a bit of healthy self-censorship. A new Carnegie Mellon University study has identified the 295 words and phrases the Chinese government looks for when it steps in and forcibly blocks communication between its own citizens.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reports that the list is home to known controversial terms like "Falun Gong" but also includes "iodized salt." And strangely enough, they both have become hot button search items.

The Falun Gong is a dissident religious group labeled a cult by the Chinese government, while iodized salt is one of the most common household items in the modern world. But it was also part of a rampant rumor in China after last year's nuclear plant meltdown in Japan, in which people falsely claimed that iodized salt could reduce radiation poisoning.

"The Chinese government came in, put their foot down and said don't believe these rumors. After that, iodized salt became a sensitive topic and it was highly likely a message would be deleted if it discussed salt," said David Bamman, the study's co-author, in an interview with the Gazette. The study results were first published in the online journal First Monday.

The study's authors based their findings on data collected from the Chinese micro-blogging site Sina Weibo. While Twitter has a purported 300 million users worldwide, Sina Weibo has 300 million in China alone. Even with the rampant Chinese government censorship, Sina Weibo's stock has soared recently with news that 50 million of its 300 million users have joined in the past three months alone, making it the third most popular site in China.

The study looked at more than 57 million messages posted on Sina Weibo during a three-month period last year.

When breaking down the messages to match with the popular political and social terms, the research team found that 212,583 out of 1.3 million checked messages, roughly 16 percent, had been deleted by the Chinese government. And 54 percent of all messages sent from Tibet had been deleted.

Study co-author Noah Smith said most examinations of Chinese Internet censorship look at the sites the government has blocked outright. So the authors instead wanted to process a hard statistical analysis of what the Chinese government was doing to censor content on sites it lets the public at large access.

A 2005 Open Net study declared that China has the most-sophisticaed level of Internet censorhsip in the world.

"The rise of domestic Chinese micro-blogging sites has provided a unique opportunity to systematically study content censorship in detail," Smith told the Gazette.

The Chinese government is not shy about its Internet censorship, even launching an official campaign known as the Golden Shield Project, or "Great Firewall." The government has announced that as of March 16, it will require all Sina Weibo users to publicly use their real names on all accounts.

>> Original Source