Human Rights: December 2007 Archives
By RADIO FREE ASIA
December 30, 2007
As the city gears up to host the Olympic Games in 2008, authorities in Beijing have detained a prominent civil rights activist on charges of "incitement to subvert state power" and have demolished the last of a shanty town housing people lodging complaints against the government.
Chinese rights activist Hu Jia, best known for his advocacy work on behalf of those living with HIV/AIDS, has been detained by national security police in Beijing on charges of "incitement to subvert state power," a fellow activist said.
Hu was detained while in the middle of an exchange of instant messages via Skype with another rights activist, Qi Zhiyong, Qi told RFA's Cantonese service.
"I was chatting on Skype with Hu Jia, and it was right in the middle of that conversation that he was detained. The charge was incitement to subvert state power," Qi said.
"Hu's wife Zeng Jinyan, and their child and his mother-in-law are now under surveillance."
Shanty Town Cleared
"They have cut off all their means of communication with the outside world, and confiscated all their communications devices," Qi said.
Meanwhile, bulldozers cleared away the last shacks in "Petitioner village" near the southern railway station in the capital, petitioners say.
Beijing-based petitioner Zhao Shuling said: "It's because of the Olympic Games. The area around the southern railway station will become an international railway terminus, which will be huge, with three levels underground."
"Around the time of the Olympics, a lot of foreigners will come to Beijing, and the petitioner village will spoil the look of the city. That's why the authorities have demolished it."
Asked where the petitioners were going to live, Zhao replied, "Of course there's nowhere for them to go."
By Donald Greenlees and Keith Bradsher | The New York Times
December 30, 2007
Chinese officials announced Saturday that Hong Kong would have to wait at least another decade for democratic elections to select its leader, and for more than 12 years to have the right to directly elect the entire legislature.
The decision is the latest in a series of setbacks for the democracy aspirations of Hong Kong residents, and another sign that Beijing's current leaders have scant appetite for experimenting with greater public participation in political decision-making.
The Basic Law, the mini-Constitution imposed by China on Hong Kong after Britain returned the city to Chinese rule in 1997, raises the prospect of choosing Hong Kong leaders starting in 2007 by the principle of one person, one vote. But having already decided in 2004 to postpone universal suffrage until at least 2012, Beijing's leaders took the next step on Saturday of postponing action for at least five years after that.
Donald Tsang, the current chief executive who is Hong Kong's leader, plans to retire in 2012.
That has raised the prospect of a struggle among pro-Beijing political groups at that time over who might succeed him.
Pushing back even the possibility of universal suffrage until 2017 means that whoever succeeds Mr. Tsang would probably be running for re-election and would have all the advantages of an incumbent.
Delaying action until 2017 also means that Beijing's current leaders would leave the problem of how to handle Hong Kong to their successors, which will be chosen in 2012, as President Hu Jintao and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao are both expected to retire in early 2013.
The Chinese government's timetable for democratic reform in Hong Kong follows a decision by the Standing Committee of China's Parliament, the National People's Congress, to reject universal suffrage there in 2012, a timetable that opinion polls suggested is favored by a majority of the people of Hong Kong.
The earliest voters would be entitled to elect the chief executive by popular vote is now 2017. They must wait until 2020 before possibly having the opportunity to vote for the entire 60-seat Legislative Council.
By William Foreman - Associated Press - via Yahoo Malaysia! News
December 26, 2007
DONGZHOU, China - Trucks with loudspeakers drove through a fishing village in southern China on Wednesday, warning residents against protesting over a power plant they claim was built on unfairly seized land. Police briefly detained a foreign reporter before escorting him away from the village.
Scores of security forces, including military police riding on trucks, were guarding the road to the power station in Dongzhou, where three men were shot dead two years ago when police cracked down on a protest against the facility. Residents say the government gave them little or no compensation for the land used by the plant.
The long-simmering dispute began boiling again early this month when protesters blocked an electricity pylon that wasn't fully operational. Last week, Radio Free Asia _ a private broadcaster funded by the U.S. Congress _ reported that about 1,000 riot police fired tear gas at protesters in Dongzhou.
One resident, who declined to give his name fearing arrest, confirmed the details of the Radio Free Asia report.
"They're telling us not to march in the streets anymore," the man whispered as one of the loudspeaker trucks cruised by in the center of the village. "It's still tense. There are about 1,000 security officers here. They've arrested some of the protest leaders in the past few days."
Other residents said the same thing, but they were reluctant to chat much about the protests in Dongzhou, on the southeastern coast of Guangdong _ one of China's most prosperous provinces.
The grievance is just one in a series of increasingly frequent confrontations across China between police and villagers angry over land seizures for construction of factories, shopping malls and other projects.
USA Today
December 11, 2007
The Olympics, to be held next summer in Beijing, are a source of immense national pride. China's communist government is presenting the Games as one huge coming out party, proof that it's a respected international power. To get the Olympics, it made promises on improving human rights in general and press freedom in particular.
Those promises, however, are looking increasingly empty.
In the past few months, at least 60 foreign journalists have been obstructed or detained by Chinese police -- this after China agreed in January to relax restrictions on foreign reporters, allowing them to travel more freely.
Swiss TV correspondent Barbara Luthi, for example, was recently hit and detained by authorities in Shenyou, a village near Beijing where unrest led to the deaths of several people two years ago. Two more Swiss journalists were detained as they reported on villagers who had been threatened in connection with a land dispute.
China also plans to conduct ID checks on 20,000 or more journalists covering the Games. The checks could be used to bar those who want to report on sensitive issues. "If they do not pass the tests, their accreditation requests will be refused," said Chinese official Yang Minghui, according to the press watch group Reporters Without Borders.
That China is hugely sensitive to criticism now is plain. Complaints by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) led to the easing of rules on foreign journalists. And when Hollywood stars threatened to call the Summer Games the "Genocide Olympics," Beijing belatedly pressured Sudan, where it buys oil, over Darfur. With pressure off on both those issues, the Chinese authorities are backsliding. This is no time to let up.
China has changed rapidly over the past quarter-century, but political freedoms haven't kept up with economic ones. Reporters Without Borders has documented about 100 Chinese journalists, cyberdissidents and free-speech activists jailed for "subversion" or "disseminating state secrets" -- often for revealing things the authorities want to hide, such as environmental dangers.
This moment, when the Chinese are susceptible to pressure, is a unique opportunity for the IOC to promote the cause of press freedoms. The more China opens up before the Games, the harder it will be to shut back down once the torch moves on.
By RADIO FREE ASIA
December 07, 2007
When Chinese security forces opened fire on local protesters in the southern township of Dongzhou two years ago, the world suddenly took notice as never before of China's surging rural unrest.
Now, as Dongzhou remembers its dead--the official tally is three--reports of similar rural protests over land acquisition by local government, among other grievances, are surfacing several times a week. Meanwhile, life-threatening pollution problems and unpaid wages are likely to send China's urbanites out onto the streets.
Mass protests in the southeastern port city of Xiamen earlier this year persuaded local officials to beat a strategic retreat on plans to build a paraxylene (PX) plant in the city for a while.
But residents are planning a new series of demonstrations as news has emerged that the government is once more pushing the proposal to the fore.
The municipal government held a news conference Wednesday saying that an environmental impact assessment into the proposed plant had already been completed, along with public consultation lasting 10 days.
Opposition to chemical plant
Online forums saw calls for further mass demonstrations in the form of a "collective walk" beginning at 10 a.m. Saturday morning outside the municipal library, and walking to the city government offices to show the level of opposition to the plans.
One Xiamen resident told RFA's Cantonese service that no formal notification had been sent out of a demonstration, but that he would definitely attend if other people did.
"I would definitely go on a protest. We are all very concerned about this issue. This project would have an effect on the citizens of Xiamen if it were ever built. We are dead against such a thing." He said he believed such projects should be built away from major population centers.
Another Xiamen resident agreed: "In another 10 days, the government will announce whether or not this project will go ahead. The environmental assessment came out yesterday. Now they are running a consultation to hear the opinions of ordinary citizens."
By Keith Bradsher | The New York Times
December 08, 2007
Every night, columns of hulking blue and red freight trucks invade China's major cities with a reverberating roar of engines and dark clouds of diesel exhaust so thick it dims headlights.
By daybreak in this sprawling metropolis in southeastern China, residents near thoroughfares who leave their windows open overnight find their faces stiff with a dark layer of diesel soot.
After Mary Leung opens her tiny open-air shop along a major road soon after dawn, she must wipe the soot off her countertops and tables; the tiny yellow-and-olive bird that has kept her company is harder to clean.
Trucks are the mules of this country's spectacularly expanding economy -- ubiquitous and essential, yet highly noxious.
Trucks here burn diesel fuel contaminated with more than 130 times the pollution-causing sulfur that the United States allows in most diesel. While car sales in China are now growing even faster than truck sales, trucks are by far the largest source of street-level pollution.
Tiny particles of sulfur-laden soot penetrate deep into residents' lungs, interfering with the absorption of oxygen. Nitrogen oxides from truck exhaust, which build all night because cities limit truck traffic by day, bind each morning with gasoline fumes from China's growing car fleet to form dense smog that inflames lungs and can cause severe coughing and asthma.
The 10 million trucks on Chinese roads, more than a quarter of all vehicles in this country, are a major reason that China accounts for half the world's annual increase in oil consumption. Sating their thirst helped push the price of oil to nearly $100 a barrel this year, before a recent decline, and has propelled China past the United States as the world's largest emitter of global-warming gases.
Yet cleaning up truck pollution presents complex problems for China's leaders.
For instance, regulators have begun raising emissions standards for new trucks, but have left millions of older ones belching black smoke. Forcing businesses and farmers to buy more expensive vehicles could put a drag on the economy, which already faces inflationary pressure from rising food prices and other costs.
That fear of inflation -- not to mention political and social unrest -- has led Beijing to prevent the country's mostly state-owned oil companies from increasing diesel prices at the pump in pace with global oil prices. Raising fuel prices for farmers, whose incomes have lagged behind those of city dwellers and who need diesel for their tractors, is one concern. Lower diesel prices also essentially subsidize every manufacturer in China's elaborate export machine.
But price controls create a vicious circle. Oil giants like Sinopec, losing money on every gallon of diesel they refine because of the low sales prices, upgrade refineries slowly, if at all. And they seek out cheap crude, which has high levels of sulfur, to make diesel, negating the effects of higher emissions standards for new vehicles.
"Sinopec is trying our best to purchase low-quality crudes -- much heavier and more sulfur content," said Evan Jia, a Sinopec spokesman. "We buy those kinds of crudes to lower the purchasing cost."
Low diesel prices frequently make trucks more cost-effective than trains, which pollute less. Sales of large freight trucks in China outpace those in the United States by a wide margin. Demand for diesel at service stations is so great, and supplies are so tight, that rationing and shortages have become common. Truck drivers idle for hours only to be allowed to buy as little as five gallons of fuel.
Since 2000, sales of heavy-duty trucks have risen sixfold while car sales have risen eightfold. This has created myriad problems, from gridlock that chokes China's cities to pollution that chokes its citizens, contributing each year to hundreds of thousands of premature deaths from heart and lung problems, according to the World Bank.
Working in the Fumes
Ms. Leung, the shopkeeper, is a slender, tidy, 44-year-old woman with a cheery disposition. She used to keep her little bird in a wooden cage over the entrance to the two battered plastic tables where she serves soft drinks and fresh waffles for less than 40 cents each.
All day, trucks, buses and cars grind past. While large trucks are banned in Guangzhou from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., some obtain special permits for daytime access. And many medium-size trucks with diesel engines are allowed in the city during the day if they carry local license plates.
"We had to put out bowls of water in the cage," Ms. Leung said, so the bird could constantly wash itself. She finally moved the bird, a Pekin robin, to her home on a quieter street.
She tries not to think about what the exhaust fumes are doing to her own health.
"My throat hurts all the time," she said. "I suck on throat lozenges for it. It's unbearable."
International experts say that hundreds of millions of Chinese are exposed every day to the potentially lethal mix of soot particles and smog.
American regulators have labeled diesel soot a likely carcinogen. A growing body of academic literature blames tiny airborne particles from diesel exhaust, coal-fired power plants and other sources for up to 90 percent of all deaths from outdoor air pollution, because the particles penetrate so deeply into lungs. Diesel engines also emit large quantities of nitrogen oxides, which react with gasoline fumes to produce photochemical smog when hit by sunlight.
Mainland Chinese atmospheric scientists concluded in an analysis this year in The Journal of Environmental Sciences that, here in Guangzhou, particles were the pollutant farthest out of line with air-quality norms 226 days a year. Sulfur dioxide, which comes mainly from burning coal, was the pollutant that exceeded norms by the widest margin 45 days a year, while nitrogen oxides were the most prominent pollutant 23 days a year.
The air was relatively clean on the remaining 71 days a year.
New tests by Chinese and American researchers in Tianjin, in northeastern China, found that diesel engines in trucks and buses accounted for 93 percent of all nitrogen oxides from vehicles in China and 97 percent of particles.
A separate academic study of diesel exhaust here in Guangzhou found that Chinese trucks put out particles in unusually large quantities and sizes, as engines with often inadequate or damaged emissions equipment were forced to pull overweight loads.
Ms. Leung said she had little choice but to stick it out.
She and her husband had a shop on a less-busy street, but the building was torn down and the local government gave her the current lease as a substitute. They are not allowed to sell the lease or apply for a different one, and the shop is their sole means of support for two daughters, the elder one the first in the family to go to college.
The only option, Ms. Leung said, is to hope that her building will be condemned so the city will issue her a lease in a more healthful location. "I'm dreaming of it," she said.
By The Associated Press | The New York Times
05 December 2007
(Geneva, Switzerland): China continues to evict 13,000 people each month in preparation for the Beijing Olympics, despite worldwide attention and increased scrutiny, a housing rights group said Wednesday.
The Center on Housing Rights and Evictions said a recent trip to the Chinese capital confirmed an estimate it made earlier this year that 1.5 million people would be displaced by the time the 2008 Games are held.
Beijing says the group is grossly inflating the number of people being relocated as a result of the Olympic preparations, and that residents are content with the compensation they have received.
''Despite courageous protests inside China, and condemnation by many international human rights organizations, the Beijing municipality and Beijing Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games have persisted with these evictions and displacements,'' said Jean du Plessis, the Geneva-based COHRE's deputy director.
The group -- which claimed in June that 1.25 million had already been displaced -- said it returned to Beijing in August and found that forced evictions were continuing unabated.
In September, the Beijing municipality demolished several buildings in a run-down neighborhood called the ''petitioners' village'' in Fengtai District, which provided housing for thousands from all over China who came to complain to the central government about land seizures, forced evictions and corruption, COHRE said.
''Evictions in Beijing often involve the complete demolition of poor peoples' houses,'' the group said. ''The inhabitants are then forced to relocate far from their communities and workplaces, with higher transportation costs driving them further into poverty.
''In Beijing, and in China more generally, the process of demolition and eviction is characterized by arbitrariness and lack of due process. In many cases, tenants are given little or no notice of their eviction and do not receive the promised compensation.''
By Human Rights Watch
December 03, 2007
'Work and Study' Programs Put Hundreds of Thousands of Children at Risk
The Chinese government should abolish the use of income-generating child labor schemes in middle and junior high schools because of their chronic abuses, Human Rights Watch said today. Many programs interfere with children's education, lack basic health and safety guarantees, and involve long hours and dangerous work."China claims that it is fighting child labor, and repeatedly cites its legal prohibition against the practice as proof," said Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. "But the government actively violates its own prohibitions by running large programs through the school system that use child labor, lack sufficient health and safety guarantees, and exploit loopholes in domestic labor laws."
Under "Work and Study" programs regulated by the Ministry of Education, schools in impoverished areas are encouraged to set up income-generating activities to make up for budgetary shortfalls. According to official statistical material from the Ministry of Education seen by Human Rights Watch, more than 400,000 middle and junior high schools, which are for children ages 12 to 16, nationwide are running agricultural and manufacturing schemes. In 2004, proceeds from Work and Study programs generated over 10 billion yuan (US$1.25 billion), the statistics show.
Chinese law prohibits the use of child of labor under age 16 but stipulates that children may be employed under special circumstances, such as in sports or in the arts, or if their "occupational training" and "educational labor" does not adversely affect their personal health and safety. Regulations that govern Work and Study programs in middle and junior high schools prohibit hazardous work and stress that "education must come first," but fail to provide a clear definition of the acceptable kind, intensity, and overall time duration of this special category of work.
The majority of schools limit these schemes to seasonal agricultural work (such as growing and harvesting crops), improving school facilities, or producing small handicrafts over summer breaks, either independently or through contract with outside employers.
But overly vague Work and Study regulations and poor supervision have led to widespread abuse of the system by schools and employers alike. Children as young as 12 have been employed in heavy agricultural and hazardous construction work. Others have been dispatched to local factories for weeks or months of "summer employment." Some schools have turned into full-fledged workshops to produce local handiwork or foodstuff while relegating teaching to a few hours a week.
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