Human Rights: May 2006 Archives

Reporters Without Borders
May 22, 2006

The Public Security Bureau’s formal refusal on 17 May to allow detained blogger and documentary filmmaker Hao Wu access to a lawyer on national security grounds is “absurd,” Reporters Without Borders said today, as Hao began his fourth month in detention.

“Hao’s case is emblematic of the PSB’s methods,” the press freedom organisation said. “It is farcical to treat this blogger as a threat to national security. Is there any serious possibility that letting a prisoner of conscience have a lawyer might destabilise the Chinese government?”

A formal request for Hao to be defended by a lawyer was filed with the PSB by his sister, Na Wu, who has reported on her blog (http://spaces.msn.com/wuhaofamily): “It appears that all efforts to seek legal help have reached a dead end.”

According to the authorities, Hao is currently under “house arrest.” He cannot receive visits or telephone his family. The PSB is also still refusing to tell him why he has been arrested. But it has reportedly undertaken to make a statement to the family by August, which would be six months after his arrest.

Hao had a blog called Beijing or Bust in which he wrote under the pseudonym of Beijing Loafer. He was also the North-East Asia editor of the website Global Voices, to which he contributed under the name of Tian Yi. He was arrested on 22 February while preparing a report on China’s underground protestant churches.

Global Voices has set up a Hao support site: http://ethanzuckerman.com/haowu

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS | The New York Times
May 15, 2006

SHANGHAI, China (AP) -- A Chinese man who tried to set up an independent environmental group went on trial Monday on charges of stealing state secrets, an overseas human rights group and court official said.

Computer technician Tan Kai has been in custody since police in the eastern city of Hangzhou summoned him on Oct. 19, New York-based Human Rights in China reported.

Tan was detained after he opened a bank account as part of efforts to register an environmental group, ''Green Watch.''

His trial at Hangzhou's Xihu District People's Court was closed to the public because it involved state secrets, said a court official reached by telephone. The official refused to give his name because he was not authorized to speak to media.

>> Read the complete article

Agence France Presse | The Philippine Daily Inquirer
May 15, 2006 (05:56 am Manila time)

Tragedy of Cultural Revolution recalled

BEIJING -- Forty years ago on Tuesday, Chairman Mao Zedong unleashed China’s infamous Cultural Revolution -- a decade of terror and violence that continues to haunt both the country and its people.

The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, now officially referred to as “10 years of catastrophe,” was to unravel in a disaster that claimed millions of lives and pushed China to the brink of economic and social collapse.

The movement officially began on May 16, 1966, with a directive from Chinese Communist Party (CCP) chief Mao charging that “representatives of the bourgeoisie” had infiltrated all levels of the party and intended to establish a “dictatorship.”

The motives for the Cultural Revolution’s launch are complex, although Mao’s intention to eliminate people who threatened him politically is now seen as a stronger reason than his apparent desire to create social equality through eradication of a new class of exploitative bureaucratic rulers.

“Mao told people that he wanted to realize a fair and equal society. He deceived people by saying that (inequality) was due to his enemies,” Xu Youyu, a philosophy professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told Agence France-Presse recently.

>> Read the complete article

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS | The New York Times
11 May 2006

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush welcomed to the White House three human rights activists from China, including one whose Internet blog was blocked by Chinese authorities after it was nominated for two top international awards.

The three -- author Yu Jie, law professor and blogger Wang Yi and legal scholar Li Baiguang -- are active in China's underground Protestant churches, which have been hit for months by a government crackdown in which many movement leaders have been arrested.

Such underground Chinese churches, both Protestant and Roman Catholic, are known as house churches, a reference to their use of private homes for services instead of government-monitored churches.

Bush raised the fate of the house movement with Chinese President Hu Jintao when he visited Beijing in November. He said afterward, ''A society which recognizes religious freedom is a society which will recognize political freedom as well.''

>> Read the complete article

Radio Free Asia
11 May 2006

美国总统布什5月11号会见了来自中国大陆的三位基督徒，表达美国政府对中国宗教信仰自由的高度关注。下面是自由亚洲电台记者含青的采访报道。

美国总统布什5月11号上午在白宫会见了来自中国大陆的家庭教会成员余杰、王怡和李柏光。余杰在接受本台记者采访时表示，原定是半小时的会面持续了近一个小时，会见非常愉快。余杰说，他们首先向布什总统介绍了最近几年中国国内发生的一些新的变化：（录音）

余杰说，布什总统听到这样的信息后非常高兴，布什总统表示，美国政府将会持续地对他们表示支持，并继续关注中国的宗教信仰自由、以及中国人民对人权的追求。

余杰说，这次会面是安排在布什总统的起居室，而不是他的椭圆形办公室，这表明，这是一位美国基督徒与中国基督徒之间的会面。余杰说：（录音）

余杰说，他们三人还与布什总统分享了他们成为基督徒的个人经历，余杰接着说：（录音）

>> Read the complete article

The Epoch Times
10 May 2006

The International Society for Human Rights (IGFM) honored the German edition of The Epoch Times—Die Neue Epoche —with a special media prize for its "extensive and regular reporting" about violations of human rights in China. The presentation took place last week-end during the annual general meeting of the IGFM in Königstein am Taunus.

The first prize went to Bernd Ziesemer, the editor-in-chief of the Handelsblatt, for his editorial "Ugly China."

Ziesemer stressed in his speech that economic success did not automatically go along with progress in the area of human rights and that businessmen should not become allies of human rights violators.

>> Read the complete article

Die Neue Epoche online (Germany)
09 May 2006

Die internationale Gesellschaft für Menschrechte (IGFM) hat Die Neue Epoche für ihre „umfangreiche und regelmäßige Berichterstattung“ über Menschenrechtsverletzungen in China mit einem Medien-Sonderpreis ausgezeichnet. Die Preisverleihung fand am vergangenen Wochenende im Rahmen der Jahreshauptversammlung der IGFM in Königstein am Taunus statt.

Der erste Preis ging an Bernd Ziesemer, den Chefredakteur des Handelsblattes, für seinen Leitartikel „Das hässliche China“.

Ziesemer betonte in seiner Rede, dass wirtschaftlicher Erfolg nicht automatisch mit Fortschritten im Bereich der Menschenrechte einhergingen und dass sich Unternehmer nicht zu Erfüllungsgehilfen von Menschenrechtsverletzern machen dürften.

>> Read the complete article

By REUTERS | The New York Times
10 May 2006

BEIJING (Reuters) - At least four Chinese journalists and Internet writers are expected to stand trial this month just weeks after President Hu Jintao presented a softer line on human rights during a trip to the United States.

Early this year China, which sometimes frees political prisoners to build goodwill and bargaining power ahead of major diplomatic visits, released two jailed journalists and let a Tibetan nun imprisoned for 15 years travel to the United States.

But with Hu's April trip to Washington over, so are the diplomatic niceties, analysts believe.

>> Read the complete article