Human Rights: August 2008 Archives

By Radio Free Asia
August 28, 2008

Months after widespread Tibetan protests against Chinese rule, hundreds of monks are detained in Qinghai.

Hundreds of Tibetan monks detained after widespread protests against Chinese rule earlier this year were deported from the Tibetan capital Lhasa to remote Qinghai province, where they remain in custody, according to Tibetan sources.

Monks from two major Tibetan Buddhist monasteries, Sera and Drepung, both in the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), may have been targeted because they were seen as playing a leading role in the demonstrations, the sources said.

Many came to study at the two monasteries near Lhasa from remote areas in eastern Tibet where the Kham and Amdo dialects are spoken.

A smaller group of monks was removed from another monastery, Ganden, and taken into detention with the others, the sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Unrest erupted in Lhasa on March 14 after four days of peaceful protests, turning into a day of riots targeting Han Chinese residents and businesses. China reacted by sending in a large force of paramilitary People's Armed Police to quell the unrest, sealing off the TAR and Tibetan-populated regions of China from contact with the outside world.

Exiled Tibetan leaders say 203 people died in the violence that followed, while Beijing says 22 people died, only one of them Tibetan.

Train from Lhasa

According to an authoritative source who spoke on condition of anonymity, 675 Tibetan monks from the three targeted monasteries were put on a train from Lhasa on April 25.

"Among those 675 monks, 405 were from Drepung, 205 were from Sera, and eight were from Ganden," the source said. The remaining 57 monks from outlying areas were said to have been taken from smaller Lhasa monasteries.

"They were transported to a military detention center in Golmud" in the Haixi [in Tibetan, Tsonub] Mongol and Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai, the source said.

"All the monks who came originally from the Qinghai region were [then] deported to their respective towns. They are still detained there in their hometown prisons or detention centers."

They were escorted home from Golmud by officials from the Qinghai United Front and Religious Affairs Bureau, according to the source.

Monks who came originally from monasteries in the still-troubled region of Kham in Sichuan province are still being held in Golmud, however, the source said. The number of those still in detention cannot be independently confirmed.

Three groups

The monks were rounded up in three groups, the source said.

"On April 10 in the afternoon, security forces detained 550 monks from Drepung monastery, took them to the Nyethang Military School, and detained them on the school campus."

"Then, on the night of April 14, a huge contingent of Chinese security forces arrived at Sera monastery and took away about 400 monks and detained them at a military prison in Tsal Gungthang," about 20 kms (12 miles) east of Lhasa, the source said.

"On April 17, a group of monks from Ganden was also rounded up and detained somewhere in Lhasa," the source added.

All those detained were reported to have suffered harsh treatment, including beatings, while in prison.

"Twenty-four monks from Drepung and Sera monasteries remain in detention at the Nationalities Middle School in the Marpa subdivision of Rebgong in Qinghai province, where they have been held since July 25" after being moved from Lhasa in April, the source said.

Held in a house

Another source with contacts in the region said that a small group of monks from monasteries in Sogpo county in the Malho [in Chinese, Huangnan] Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture of Qinghai had been studying in Lhasa monasteries at the time of the unrest.

"Recently, they were found detained in a house close to the Sogpo county center," he said. "They had not been put into prisons but were under some kind of house arrest. Later, we learned that they had been taken into detention in Golmud in April."

"They are not allowed to leave, but their family members and relatives can see them at the house where they are being held."

"There were about 30 to 40 monks studying in Lhasa who had come from different monasteries in Gepasumdo [in Chinese, Tongde] county" in the Tsolho [in Chinese, Hainan] Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai, the source said.

"There were 20 monks from Tsang monastery alone who were studying at Sera. We were told that all of them were detained."

Brother held

A Tibetan woman living in Rebgong [in Chinese, Tongren] county in the Malho Prefecture said she had learned that her brother, a monk studying in Lhasa, had been taken to the Golmud City Detention Center.

"As you know, he was from Kirti monastery in Aba [in Tibetan, Ngaba] Prefecture [in Sichuan], but was at Sera monastery in Lhasa at the time of the March protests," she said. "We couldn't trace him for a long time."

Lhasa monasteries generally take in many monks from outlying areas, including Qinghai province. "That's always been the case, historically," Tibet expert Robbie Barnett, based at Columbia University in New York, said.

These monasteries "have colleges that are specifically designed, and have been for centuries, to accommodate people from those areas," he added. Efforts beginning in 1994 to stop this practice have largely proven unsuccessful, Barnett said.

Barnett cited reports that the Lhasa protests that began March 10 comprised monks from the Amdo Tibetan area in Qinghai province.

"Some people have said that this was quite definitely the case. And some people have said that this was also true of the Sera and Drepung [demonstrations] on the other two days," he said, but added:

"I don't know how strong the evidence is for that."

Contacted by Radio Free Asia, officials at the Sera Monastery Management Committee hung up the phone, while officials at the Drepung Monastery Management Committee refused to speak to RFA reporters.

Officials at the Huangnan Prefecture Public Security Bureau denied knowledge of any monks being held at the Nationalities Middle School in Rebgong.

Original reporting by RFA's Tibetan service. Translations by Karma Dorjee. Tibetan service director: Jigme Ngapo. Written and produced in English by Sarah Jackson-Han. Edited by Luisetta Mudie and Richard Finney.

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By Robert J. Saiget - Agence France Press | via UNCENSORED Yahoo! News
August 27, 2008

Parents of children killed when poorly built schools collapsed in China's earthquake remain angry but police intimidation and cash payments have largely quelled their protests, locals said.

About 7,000 schools collapsed in the May 12 quake, often as nearby buildings stood firm, and relatives of the dead children initially spoke out loudly against the graft they believed led to the shoddy construction of the schools.

However a police crackdown in the months following the earthquake and the handing over of wads of cash to grieving relatives have apparently helped quash what was a rare moment of freedom of expression in communist-ruled China.

"The families have accepted compensation payments -- they have to accept the money because the police can be very terrifying," said a shop-owner surnamed Cheng near the Juyuan Middle School where at least 200 teachers and children died and protests were amongst the angriest.

"When they accept the money they are told to keep quiet, we have all been told not to accept interviews (with the media)."

According to Chinese press reports, compensation payments for each child lost were at least 32,000 yuan (4,500 dollars) throughout the quake zone.

But Cheng said the parents of each dead child at the Juyuan school received up to 170,000 yuan -- more than five times as much.

Parents who spoke to AFP in June during the protests -- some of which were forcibly quelled by police -- refused to talk to journalists this week.

"It is not convenient for me to speak to you now, please don't call," said You Zhenghua, who had dug her 14-year-old daughter out of the Juyuan debris with her bare hands.

One father whose daughter survived the Juyuan collapse said relatives were still angry over why the building caved in.

"It is clear that poor construction was a problem -- why didn't other buildings here collapse?" he said, while asking his name not be used for fear of repercussions from authorities.

The earthquake left nearly 88,000 people dead or missing in southwest China's Sichuan province and surrounding areas.

According to official estimates, up to 9,000 teachers and students were killed in the collapses of the school, but locals believe such estimates are far below the real numbers.

While doling out compensation and pressuring the parents to keep quiet, the government has also rounded up activists seeking to help the families.

Veteran rights campaigner Huang Qi, 44, was in July charged with "illegal possession of state secrets" after he collected data on collapsed schools, according to his wife. Authorities have not commented on his case.

Liu Shaokun, a Sichuan school teacher, was also reportedly sent to a labour camp late last month after he posted photos of collapsed school buildings on the Internet.

Liu was arrested on June 25 and sentenced to one year of "re-education through labour" for "disturbing public order," the New York-based Human Rights in China said. Police have refused to comment on Liu's case.

Immediately following the quake, China's state-controlled press was allowed to report freely on the anger of the parents over the collapsed schools, but such freedoms were curbed three weeks later.

As part of the crackdown, two AFP staff members were among at least six foreign media representatives held by police for a short time and then ordered out of town after they tried to report at Juyuan and other schools in June.

>> Read complete report 

By Paul Mooney | U.S. News & World Report
August 26, 2008

China was intent on making a splash with the 2008 Olympics, which concluded on Sunday, and it did just that. The games are being described as the best ever, thanks to great organization, impressive Olympic venues, stunning opening and closing ceremonies, an army of 70,000 smiling volunteers, and the amazing performances by athletes such as swimmer Michael Phelps and sprinter Usain Bolt.

But it was not an entirely golden occasion.

The games fell far short of accomplishing what many, perhaps unrealistically, had hoped for--to see the authoritarian Communist Party of China, in the world's spotlight, move toward becoming a kinder and gentler regime. Indeed, there was a lot of commentators' talk about this marking China's full engagement with the world, a sort of coming-out party for a "new China."

Instead, the Communist rulers stayed true to form and did pretty much as they wished while the International Olympic Committee and international community played along for the most part. In the end, the Olympics were a tool for strengthening the party's tight grip on power, rather than being an agent of change.

This could be seen before the games kicked off. Determined to make this "the best games ever," the government forced some 1.5 million Chinese out of their homes--often with little or no compensation--to make way for Olympic venues and beautification projects. Countless hawkers, beggars, construction workers, prostitutes, trash collectors, and migrant laborers were removed from the streets and were sent back to their villages or to detention centers. Ten prominent human rights activists, dubbed the Olympics prisoners, were given prison sentences for criticizing the games.

This policy continued during the games. Ding Zilin, the mother of a 17-year-old son who was killed on the night of June 4, 1989, and the founder of the Mothers of Tiananmen, and Wan Yanhai, a leading AIDS activist, were among several activists taking forced holidays outside the capital. And Zeng Jinyan, the 24-year-old blogger and wife of imprisoned dissident Hu Jia, and her 8-month-old baby, disappeared altogether.

In a throwback to George Orwell's Animal Farm, the Communist authorities set up three Protest Zones in parks where legal demonstrations could be held. Of the 77 applications submitted, not one was approved. Indeed, 15 people were arrested for being foolish enough to believe the government was serious. This includes Wu Dianyuan, 79, and Wang Xiuying, 77, who have been threatened with a year in a re-education-through-labor camp. The two wished to protest against officials who evicted them from their homes in 2001.

While foreign journalists were free to cover sporting events, in many cases, they were harassed, beaten, and even arrested by the police, who prevented them from reporting on sensitive issues and even talking to Chinese citizens. According to the Foreign Correspondents' Club of China, there were more than 30 cases of reporting interference from July 25, the day of the opening of the Olympic Media Center, with the most disturbing trend the increase in the incidence of police roughing up or beating reporters and breaking their cameras. Foreign journalists also complained about restrictions on travel to places like Tibet and in Xinjiang, and the blocking of Internet websites.

Two American videobloggers were detained for covering pro-Tibetan activists and were sentenced to 10 days in prison for "disrupting public order." Dozens of foreign protesters were detained and deported.

>> Read complete report

By Andrew Jacobs | The New York Times
August 21, 2008

In the annals of people who have struggled against Communist Party rule, Wu Dianyuan and Wang Xiuying are unlikely to merit even a footnote.

The two women, both in their late 70s, have never spoken out against China's authoritarian government. Both walk with the help of a cane, and Ms. Wang is blind in one eye. Their grievance, receiving insufficient compensation when their homes were seized for redevelopment, is perhaps the most common complaint among Chinese displaced during the country's long streak of fast economic growth.

But the Beijing police still sentenced the two women to an extrajudicial term of "re-education through labor" this week for applying to hold a legal protest in a designated area in Beijing, where officials promised that Chinese could hold demonstrations during the Olympic Games.

They became the most recent examples of people punished for submitting applications to protest. A few would-be demonstrators have simply disappeared, at least for the duration of the Games, squelching already diminished hopes that the influx of foreigners and the prestige of holding the Games would push China's leaders to relax their tight grip on political expression.

"Can you imagine two old ladies in their 70s being re-educated through labor?" asked Li Xuehui, Ms. Wu's son, who said the police told the two women that their sentence might remain in suspension if they stayed at home and stopped asking for permission to protest.

"I feel very sad and angry because we're only asking for the basic right of living and it's been six years, but nobody will do anything to help," Mr. Li said.

It is unclear why the police have detained people who sought permission to protest. Some political analysts say the police may be refusing to enforce the government's order, announced last month, to allow protest zones. Chinese lawyers and human rights advocates also suggested a more cynical motivation -- that the authorities were using the possibility of legal demonstrations as a ploy to lure restive citizens into declaring their intention to protest, allowing the police to take action against them.

When the International Olympic Committee awarded the Games to Beijing in 2001, ignoring critics who said China should not be rewarded for repression, its president, Jacques Rogge, offered assurances that the Games would invariably spur China toward greater openness.

But prospects dimmed even before the opening ceremony, when overseas journalists arrived to discover that China's promise to provide uncensored Internet access was riddled with caveats. The ensuing uproar did persuade the government to unblock some politically sensitive Web sites, but many others, including those that discuss Tibet and the banned spiritual group Falun Gong, remain inaccessible at the Olympic press center.

The announcement that the police had set up protest zones was first greeted as a positive if modest step that could allow Chinese a new channel to voice grievances otherwise ignored by party officials and the state media.

"In order to ensure smooth traffic flow, a nice environment and good social order, we will invite these participants to hold their demonstrations in designated places," Liu Shaowu, the security director for Beijing's Olympic organizing committee, said at a news conference. He described the creation of three so-called protest zones and suggested that a simple application process would provide Chinese citizens an avenue for free expression, a right that has long been enshrined in China's Constitution but in reality is rarely granted.

But with four days left before the closing ceremony, the authorities acknowledge that they have yet to allow a single protest. They claim that most of the people who filed applications had their grievances addressed, obviating the need for a public expression of discontent.

Chinese activists say they are not surprised that the promise proved illusory. Li Fangping, a lawyer who has been arrested and beaten for his dogged representation of rights advocates, said there was no way the government would allow protesters to expose some of China's most vexing problems, among them systemic corruption, environmental degradation and the forced relocation of hundreds of thousands of residents for projects related to the Olympics.

"For Chinese petitioners, if their protest applications were approved, it would lead to a chain reaction of others seeking to voice their problems as well," Mr. Li said.

During the past two decades, China has embraced a market economy and shed some of the more onerous restrictions that dictated where people could live, whom they could marry and whether they could leave the country. But with political dissent and religious freedom, the government has been unrelenting.

In theory, the Communist Party allows citizens to lobby the central government on matters of local corruption, the illegal seizure of land and extralegal detentions. In reality, those who arrive at Beijing's petition office are often met at the door by plainclothes officers who stop them from filing their complaints and then bundle them back to their hometowns. Intimidation, beatings and administrative detentions are often enough to prevent them from trying again.

>> Read complete report

By BBC News
August 14, 2008

China has set aside three parks during the Olympics, to allow people to demonstrate. But, as the BBC's Michael Bristow finds out, the parks are empty and those who apply for permission to protest are even finding themselves arrested.

Just before the Olympic Games began, officials said ordinary Chinese people would be able to apply for permission to vent their feelings.

But several would-be demonstrators appear to have been detained by the authorities after trying to apply for that permission.

This is just one way in which China is attempting to restrict embarrassing protests during the Olympic Games.

"The protest application process clearly isn't about giving people greater freedom of expression, but making it easier for the police to suppress it," said Sophie Richardson, from Human Rights Watch.

One of those detained is Zhang Wei, who was held after applying to stage a protest about her family's forced eviction from their courtyard home.

Her son, Mi Yu, said she was initially supposed to be held for just three days for "disturbing social order", but that that had now been extended to 30 days.

Ms Zhang, forced to move to make way for redevelopment in Beijing's Qianmen district, made several protest applications.

"She went every two or three days after seeing a report about the parks. But the police did not give their approval," Mr Mi said.

His mother was taken away last week. The family have not heard from her since.

Many obstacles

Another activist held after making a protest application was Ji Sizun, who was detained on Monday, according to Human Rights Watch.

The 58-year-old, from Fujian province, wanted to call for greater participation by ordinary people in the political process.

Citing witnesses, the rights group said Mr Ji was taken away shortly after entering a Beijing police station to ask about his application.

This application process is a taxing one. Would-be protesters even have to tell police what posters and slogans they intend to use.

There have been reports of others who have been prevented from staging protests in the designated areas.

Some have just had their applications turned down, one was sent back to her home province and yet others have been stopped from travelling to Beijing.

Confusion

The parks designated as protest zones - Shijie, Zizhuyuan and Ritan - do not seem to have been inundated with protesters.

At Shijie ("World") Park on Wednesday one worker said there had not been a single demonstration since the Olympics began.

Potential protesters might have been put off by the police car and van parked directly outside the main entrance of the park, which houses large models of famous world sites.

No one seemed to know where a protest could be held, even if Beijing's Public Security Bureau gave its approval.

"I don't know anything about that," said a ticket collector when asked where protesters could express their opinions.

It was a similar story at Ritan Park, where there seems to have been no protests either.

Dissuading people from protesting is just one tactic being used by China's security forces to prevent demonstrations.

Beijing's streets are full of police, other security personnel and volunteers, wearing red armbands, on the lookout for trouble.

Eight pro-Tibet demonstrators from Students for a Free Tibet were quickly detained on Wednesday after staging a protest.

Some well-known Chinese activists have also been told to keep a low profile during the Olympics. The friend of one said she had decided to leave the city during the Olympics to avoid trouble.

>> Original source

By John Leicester - Associated Press | Deseret News
August 16, 2008

Brief encounter with medalist reveals totally sheltered life

BEIJING -- For a few brief moments, it was as if a curtain had parted. We had one of China's young -- perhaps too young -- Olympic gymnasts alone.

Yang Yilin, through no fault of her own, has been one of the stories of these Games because of questions about whether she and two other gymnasts on the Chinese team are old enough to compete. China insists they are, but that hasn't erased the doubts that they may be under the minimum age of 16.

Now we had our chance to find out more, to get a close-up look at this 4-foot, 11-inch figure of controversy as she waited for her medal-winners' news conference to begin.

How fragile she looked, like a baby deer in the headlights of an oncoming SUV. Little pink hearts and the word "love" in blue letters decorated her hair clips. The glitter on her forehead twinkled under the lights. Chalk was encrusted where the skin met her slender fingernails. So thin, so uneasy, so out of place she seemed, in a downstairs room in Beijing's National Indoor Stadium. She'd just won an Olympic bronze medal in all-around gymnastics, one of the toughest sporting tests there is.

Two Americans had stood with her on the podium. Nastia Liukin got the gold, Shawn Johnson the silver, and they were late. As minutes passed, reporters crowded around Yang, scrutinizing, asking questions.

.......................................

Then, a little hesitantly, Yang started to answer the questions. And the more she said, the more shocking it was. The answers were brief, spoken without heart. What emerged was a picture of a young girl who has been kept largely cut off from family and the outside world for more than a year, so she could be intensely trained to win medals for China at its own Olympics.

Were your parents here to see you compete, among the cheering crowds?

"I don't know."

When was the last time you went home?"

"Ummm ... before I joined the national team," Yang said, her small voice hard to hear.

When was that?

"More than a year ago."

Will you go on holiday after the Games?

"I don't know."

How many holidays do you get a year?

"I have not had a holiday since I joined the national team."

>> Read complete report

By GILLIAN WONG - Associated Press Writer | via ABC News
August 15, 2008

Five foreign activists were deported Friday after they scaled a landmark building in Beijing to unfurl a "Free Tibet" banner over the top of an Olympic Games billboard in the latest protest during the games.

Television footage by Britain's Sky News showed the activists, draped in Tibetan nationalist flags and wearing helmets, dangling from ropes as they hung the black-and-white banner about 20 feet off the ground at the new headquarters of state-owned China Central Television, which is still under construction. Police quickly took the banner down.

The Beijing Public Security Bureau said in a faxed reply to questions that the protesters had "engaged in activities that violated Chinese law." Police ordered the activists to leave the country, it said.

Students for a Free Tibet's campaigns director, Kate Woznow, confirmed the five activists were deported later Friday. The group said the activists included three Americans, a Briton and a Canadian.

>> Read complete news

ITV News journalist arrested by police in Beijing
August 13, 2008

A longer, edited version of this video can be seen here 

Follow-up report from ITV can be seen by clicking here

A related report with video from BBC can be viewed here

China Tibet demo near stadium
Foreign pro-Tibet activists are taken away by Beijing police after staging a protest near the Olympic stadium. Police scuffled with the protesters and tried to prevent journalists from getting footage of the incident. China has come under criticism for continuing to stop journalists from reporting on sensitive issues.

by Charles Whelan | Agence France Presse via UNCENSORED Yahoo! News
August 13, 2008

Chinese police roughed up a British TV crew and stopped them covering a pro-Tibet protest, witnesses said, in the latest case of interference with media freedom at the Beijing Olympic Games.

Uniformed police pounced on John Ray, China correspondent for Independent Television News (ITN), shortly after protesters unfurled a pro-Tibet banner near the main Olympic complex, witnesses and the reporter said.

His cameraman Ben England was also manhandled and prevented from filming the protest, they said.

Pro-Tibetan independence group Students for a Free Tibet said two protesters who unfurled the banner were arrested while six other members of the group were also detained for protesting nearby.

Ray said he was wrestled to the ground and dragged into a nearby restaurant where he was forcibly held down by uniformed and plainclothes officers who also stamped on his hands.

Ray, who is fully accredited to report in Beijing during the Olympic Games, said he was detained for around 20 minutes and his equipment bag was confiscated.

"This was an assault in my mind, I am incredibly angry about this," Ray told AFP minutes after he was released.

His shoes were scuffed, the back of his trousers and shirt were covered in grime and he displayed some bruising on his hand.

He said he told the officers in Chinese that he was a journalist during the incident, during which he was also asked for his views on Tibetan independence.

"I am just wondering where this fits in with China's solemn undertaking to allow us to report freely during the Olympics," he said.

The British embassy said it had expressed "strong concern" to the Chinese authorities while the Foreign Correspondents Club (FCC) in Beijing demanded that police apologise to the ITN reporter.

"The FCC is appalled by this treatment of an accredited journalists within half a mile of the main Olympic stadium," said Club president Jonathan Watts.

>> Read complete report

By TIM SULLIVAN | Associated Press Writer via UNCENSORED Yahoo! News
Associated Press Writer Gillian Wong contributed to this report
August 13, 2008

Over at the media village, China is battering them with petty kindnesses.

There's one person to open the door to the cafeteria where breakfast is served, and two more to sort journalistic recycling from journalistic trash. There are people to guide the press onto special buses. There are flower-arranging demonstrations (mostly ignored) at the main media press center, just off the Olympic Green, and free afternoon coffee and cookies (well-attended).

Security sweeps are gauntlets of politeness, where the "good-morning's" and "please's" rain down from teams of smiling Olympic staffers in matching blue Olympic outfits.

China has a long history of difficult relations with the foreign media, and has long heavily restricted press access to sensitive stories. But the past week also makes clear that Beijing wants to keep those journalists happy while they cover the Olympic games.

Those sensitive stories, though, are still clearly out of bounds.

On Wednesday, a British television journalist was detained by police as he tried to report on a pro-Tibet protest near the green, where protesters handcuffed themselves together and hung a "Free Tibet" banner from a bridge. John Ray of London-based ITV News was grabbed by police and put into a car. He was released after proving he was a journalist.

International Olympic Committee spokeswoman Emmanuelle Moreau said the committee was checking into what happened. "The IOC's position is clear: the media must be free to report on the Olympic Games," she said in a statement.

While Beijing vowed before the Olympics to give the foreign media unrestricted access to China during the games, Ray's detention was just the latest in a string of recent confrontations between Chinese authorities and international journalists, adding to worries that Beijing has reverted to the tight controls it normally keeps over the press.

Late last month, Chinese police shoved and kicked a crowd of 30,000 people who had waited in the heat for up to two days hoping to get a chance to buy Olympic tickets. Hong Kong television showed several journalists pushing back against police, and Hong Kong Cable TV showed a policeman putting his arm around the neck of one of their reporters and pulling him to the ground.

Last week, two Japanese journalists were briefly detained and beaten by police in western China, triggering a protest by the Japanese government. Chinese officials later apologized. The journalists were working in Xinjiang province at the scene of a deadly attack on Chinese policemen when they were forcibly taken to a border police facility, said a reporter for Japanese broadcaster Nippon Television Network Corp.

While China has long been anxious to use the Olympics as a chance to show its emergence as a global superpower, such reactions also reflect Beijing's efforts to carefully script the games and how journalists cover them.

Olympic freebies and flower-arranging amount to nothing substantive, said Bob Dietz of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists. "The easy stuff ... is easy" he said. "This is China turning on its hospitality and welcoming people, and it isn't just journalists getting the red-carpet treatment.

"On the substantive issues, there hasn't been much movement at all," he said. "The one human rights pledge that China made was that there would be a free media for the games -- and that just hasn't materialized."

So coverage of athletes and gold medal face-offs are acceptable. But stories about pro-Tibet protests -- even on the edge of the main Olympic venues -- are off-limits.

"I can give you a general principle: That is, the Chinese government adopts a positive and open attitude and welcomes foreign journalists coming to China and report on the Beijing Olympics," Qin Gang, a Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, said at a regular briefing Wednesday. He said Chinese officials were "very concerned" about reports of what had happened to the Japanese journalists, but added that: "Local officials have the right to take some measures."

Chinese authorities have been particularly sensitive about Tibet since bloody anti-government protests in March in the region's capital and surrounding provinces.

While foreign journalists regularly face troubles reporting in China, the situation is far worse for Chinese reporters who aggressive cover sensitive topics ranging from official corruption to human rights.

At least 26 Chinese journalists are in prison in China for their work, the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said in a statement earlier this year. According to a February report by the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders, China jails the largest number of journalists, cyber dissidents, Internet users and activists for freedom of expression.

>> Original source

By DeWayne Wickham | USA TODAY
August 12, 2008

What China wants during these Olympics it cannot be allowed to have. More than anything else, the emerging superpower wants to bask in the glory of its role as host of the quadrennial global sports festival. It wants the worldwide embrace that traditionally has come to nations bestowed this honor.

Of course, such acceptance hasn't always been merited. Nazi Germany hosted the Olympics in August 1936, just 11 months after it stripped German Jews of their citizenship and banned them from marrying blond, blue-eyed Germans. And the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan seven months before Moscow hosted the Olympics in July 1980.

The U.S., which took part in the 1936 Olympics but boycotted the 1980 contest, is represented in China by 596 athletes and George W. Bush, the first U.S. president to attend an Olympic opening ceremony abroad. Bush said it "would be an affront to the Chinese people" if he didn't attend.

He ought to be more concerned about the people of Darfur, the embattled region of Sudan where it's estimated that 300,000 people have been killed and 2.7 million displaced by fighting that has raged in the African country since 2003.

Three years ago, Bush called the attacks by government-backed militias on ethnic minorities in Darfur a "genocide." In July, the International Criminal Court indicted Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on genocide charges and is considering issuing a warrant for his arrest. China is Sudan's biggest arms supplier. If the Sudanese leader were proven to have committed genocide, China -- which gives Sudan the means to carry out this carnage -- would be guilty of complicity.

China's sins

China's unbroken link to the genocide in Darfur should make a lot of people cringe at the legitimacy the Games now taking place in Beijing give the centuries-old tradition of the Olympic Truce, where warring factions would suspend fighting during the Games, has been replaced with one of indifference. As the rape and slaughter of people in Darfur go on, the U.S. Olympic team picked a refugee from Sudan -- who is now a U.S. citizen -- to carry this country's flag during the opening ceremony last week.

China had to be relieved that it got off so easily.

The worldview

The world has shown much greater tolerance for genocide in Africa than in Europe. About 800,000 people were killed in Rwanda during a span of a little more than three months in 1994 as the international community did virtually nothing. A token force of peacekeepers from African nations has been dispatched to Darfur but has been unable to stop the bloodshed.

When the former Yugoslavia fractured into warring parts, the response was different. Thousands of U.S. and NATO troops were sent into two breakaway regions -- Kosovo and Bosnia -- to stop ethnic cleansing. They stayed for years to keep the war's smoldering ashes from reigniting.

Without significant pressure from other nations, China has done little to pressure the Sudanese government to end the attacks on the people of Darfur. A serious boycott threat might have gotten China to act in the months leading up to the Olympics, but that didn't happen.

Now that the Games are underway, it is up to the athletes who have descended upon Beijing to find a way to signal their disapproval of China's support of the mass killings in Sudan. Some of them have already rejected such a role by saying that they are athletes, not politicians.

They should be reminded that those who commit genocide recognize no such distinction.

>> Original source

By Adrian Wojnarowski | Yahoo! Sports
August 10, 2008

BEIJING - On his way out of the game, Yao Ming thrust his fist through the air, and soon made that long, wobbly walk to the Chinese bench. The end of a brilliant and historic night for basketball, the end of responsibility for Yao. His work is done. Let him rest.

"The game was a treasure," Yao said, "and it will be a treasure for the rest of my life."

Here was a surreal sight on Sunday night in these Olympic Games. Here was the embodiment of Yao Ming's legacy: His heart, his determination, his immensity. He made possible a billion people worldwide watching a basketball game on television. He made possible these blistering ovations and rock-star treatment the U.S. players receive here. He made possible the hundreds of millions of dollars that David Stern can generate here.

And above all, Yao gave China its Olympic flag-bearer and iconic athlete to frame the most important engagement it's ever had with the world.

"Yao built the bridge for all of us," Kobe Bryant said.

To watch Yao limp and flail and double over to breathe was to understand the reasons with which his sense of obligation brought him back so soon from another broken foot, another surgery. For Yao, this is his life's lot. For his own preservation, his own crack at a career undiminished, he needs to tell a most unrelenting Chinese sports machine that its days of running him into the ground are gone.

No more summers with the national team in non-Olympic years, no more of the treatment that's breaking down his body. The sport's never seen an athlete of his size who is so skilled, so agile. His lower body has crumbled under the burden, with two broken feet, a broken leg and an infected toe. It breaks your heart to watch what has happened to him. As much as anyone, his body needs rest and recovery. The pounding has taken a terrible toll on him.

"They will continue to pressure him," one high-ranking international basketball official said of Chinese officials. "The one thing they do with all of their athletes is drive them into the ground with training. The strongest survive. If you don't, they'll find another to come and do it.

"I mean, they don't do little things like block out good airline seats for them when they travel. They can all be in middle seats in coach for all they care, and that's how Yao travels with them. Whatever happens with his injuries, they're going to insist that he keeps playing for them."

The Chinese government had monitored his birth because of the perfect physical and athletic genes of his parents, forever treating him as something of a science project. Yet there's nothing robotic, nothing programmed, about him. He has such humanity, such a sense of grace and honor. Over time, you can slowly see him assimilating into more of a Western mindset. He has things on his mind. Yes, he has plenty of opinions. It just isn't his culture's way to share them.

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By ASSOCIATED PRESS
August 10, 2008

China has deported a pro-independence Taiwanese activist who wanted to cheer athletes from Taiwan at the Olympics.

Yang Hui-ju says Beijing immigration officials searched her bag and confiscated her valid visa.

Returning to Taipei on Saturday night, she was greeted by associates wearing T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan, "Taiwan, My Country."

Taiwan and China split amid civil war in 1949. China claims the island a part of its own territory. Taiwan competes at the Olympics under the name of "Chinese Taipei."

By Christine Brennan - USA TODAY
August 07, 2008

The popular notion is that the story of the Beijing Olympic Games begins this Friday night, 8.8.08, as the saying goes, with the opening ceremony in the glowing-red Bird's Nest.

But that's not entirely true. The history of China's efforts to host the Games is already being written -- some chapters, in fact, are already completed -- and, so far, the plot line looks terrible for the Chinese.

If it weren't so sad, it would be almost comical, how China's leaders are trying to sabotage their own Olympic legacy. They were supposed to free dissidents. Instead, they jailed more. They said their air would be clean. But it looks like pea soup.

Things didn't get better in Tibet. They didn't get better in Sudan's Darfur. They didn't get better for the workers in China.

Journalists were promised they could carry out their work unfettered. Then the government blocked troublesome Internet sites in the press center.

Finally, in what might be their most outrageous act yet (there's still plenty of time for more), Chinese officials revoked the visa of Joey Cheek, one of the world's most charitable Olympians, banning him from the country because of his humanitarian work as co-founder of Team Darfur.

The problem with China is not its people, but its leaders. It's not one country, but two. There's the deferential, white-glove-wearing, efficient nation of 1.3 billion that just might put on the most awe-inspiring Olympics in memory.

There's also heavy-handed official China, the one doing all that damage to its people's good name. The government might as well be the smog that rolls in each day, obscuring the stunning venues, the first-class organization and the simple acts of kindness of tens of thousands of volunteers. You get the feeling it can't help itself. At a time when it so wants to join the rest of the world, when it craves being discovered and admired, it reverts to its Mao default setting.

After decades of Games held in the most agreeable places -- Calgary, Barcelona, Sydney -- we're in uncharted territory here. But it's already clear that the worst thing national Olympic committees and their athletes can do over the next 2½ weeks is to acquiesce to the Chinese leadership's outrageous positions rather than hold true to the values of their homeland because they want to be good guests.

The U.S. Olympic Committee took a few dangerous steps in that direction Wednesday when, in a previously scheduled news conference, its leaders failed to strongly stand up for Cheek, who not only was one of their own just 2½ years ago, he was so beloved he was selected to carry the U.S. flag in the 2006 closing ceremony.

Choosing his words as if he thought Chinese President Hu Jintao had sneaked into the back row to eavesdrop, USOC CEO Jim Scherr gave a lukewarm defense of Cheek: "It is unfortunate, but it's between this government and Joey as a private citizen."

No "We stand with Joey." Not a hint of "He's ours, and he's to be lauded for his efforts." No, just Citizen Cheek.

The USOC is not a political organization, but it does represent a country of many freedoms, and it must do better than that in the next 2½ weeks.

Its leaders would do well to follow the example of the U.S. athletes, who picked as their flag bearer a 1,500-meter runner who fled Sudan at 6 and lived in a refugee camp in Kenya for 10 years before settling in the United States.

Lopez Lomong also happens to be an outspoken member of Cheek's Team Darfur, saying if he won a medal in China, he would "hold an American flag and a Sudan flag" on the medal stand. That would be a perfect political statement, the kind the Chinese government and its accomplices in the International Olympic Committee have railed against for years.

That didn't bother the U.S. team captains who voted for the flag bearer. They could have hidden Lomong. Instead, they asked him to lead them into the stadium.

>> Original source

CBS NEWS / ASSOCIATED PRESS
August 06, 2008

Foreign activists unfurled pro-Tibet banners at a key Olympics venue Wednesday and spoke out against China's rights record in Tiananmen Square, in the first attempts to use the white-hot spotlight of the games to raise other issues.

One athlete, U.S. swim star Amanda Beard, also made a public political gesture, on behalf of animal rights.

All of the groups had problems with Chinese authorities, who are determined to make sure the communist government's plan for the Beijing Games to be an international showcase for the country goes off without a hitch.

Meanwhile, U.S. President George W. Bush plans to pointedly express "deep concerns" about the state of human rights in China and urge the communist nation to allow political freedoms for its citizens.

"America stands in firm opposition to China's detention of political dissidents, human rights advocates and religious activists," Mr. Bush is to say in the marquee speech of his three-nation Asia trip. "We speak out for a free press, freedom of assembly and labor rights - not to antagonize China's leaders, but because trusting its people with greater freedom is the only way for China to develop its full potential."

Mr. Bush is to deliver the address in a Bangkok, Thailand, convention center on Thursday morning to a crowd of foreign diplomats, Thai government leaders and business officials, before flying to China later that day. The White House released the text of the president's speech on Wednesday, nearly 18 hours in advance, as Mr. Bush traveled to Thailand from South Korea.

No arrests were reported despite the rare displays of dissent in the capital, where normally stringent controls over criticism of the government have been tightened even further for the 17-day Olympic competition.

Four foreign activists were led away by police after they hung pro-Tibet banners outside the Beijing National Stadium, where Friday's opening ceremony will be held.

Two men from Students for a Free Tibet each climbed a light pole in front of the so-called Bird's Nest and put up the banners at dawn, said Lhadon Tethong, the New York-based group's executive director. The other two - a man and a woman - provided support from the base of the poles, she said.

It was the first demonstration at a games venue. Beijing organizers condemned the protest.

"We express our strong opposition," said Sun Weide, spokesman for the Beijing Olympics organizing committee. "In terms of assembly and demonstrations, China has related laws and regulations. We hope that foreigners will respect the related Chinese laws and regulations."

Sun said the demonstrators were "persuaded to leave" by police, who received tips from local residents about the protest. The four have not been arrested or taken to a police station, he said.

International Olympic Committee spokeswoman Emmanuelle Moreau said organizers should expect people to "use the platform of the Olympic Games to draw attention to their causes."

"The IOC are confident Beijing city authorities will assess the situation reasonably and act with tact and understanding," she said.

Later Wednesday, three Americans spent almost an hour in the iconic Tiananmen Square criticizing Beijing's handling of issues ranging from forced abortions to the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement to pro-democracy demonstrations in 1989.

"It was important for us that there be a clear voice speaking out against the Chinese government's abuse of human rights," Rev. Patrick Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition in Washington, said in a telephone interview.

The trio also set up a banner in the square that said "Christ is King" and knelt and prayed. Brandi Swindell, national director of the activist group Generation Life, also put out seven roses in memory of those who died in the military crackdown on pro-democracy protests on and near the square in 1989.

They said plainclothes security agents and police officers tried to block the banner with umbrellas and started shoving the group when they tried to walk around the square. The agents eventually pushed them out of the area and made them sit nearby for almost an hour, checking their passports, before letting them go, Mahoney and Swindell said.

"It's so shocking being an American ... to see the blatant oppression," Swindell said.

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By Sean Gregory | TIME Magazine in Partnership with CNN
August 06, 2008

Last week, Joey Cheek was pumped. Over lunch in New York City, I talked to the wide-eyed Olympic champion about his upcoming trip to Beijing, where the ex-speedskater and Darfur activist planned to rally athletes to raise awareness of troubles in Sudan. He wanted to outline the steps that China, which has close ties to the Sudanese government, could take to stop the atrocities in Darfur. I half-jokingly asked him how he managed to get his hands on a visa, since the Chinese government was notoriously begrudging to let potential nuisances step foot in the country during the Olympics. "Man, I really don't know," he said, laughing. "I don't know if I want to say how it might have happened, in case they want to close that loophole."

A week later, Cheek's trip has been shut down. There's nothing to laugh about now.

As the clock ticks down to the August 8 opening ceremonies in Beijing, China doesn't seem to be getting the best eleventh-hour PR advice. Now's the time when swimmers and runners could distract the world from the nation's much-criticized human rights record, and when athletic competition could supersede geopolitical tension for a few short weeks. Instead, in the weeks leading up to the Games Chinese organizers decided to censor websites about Tibet, Falun Gong, and other politically sensitive groups to the foreign media, causing the predictable outcry from international press and human right groups. (Officials have since backed down and opened up the sites). Now comes word that China has banned Cheek to enter the country on the eve of the Games, revoking the visa of an American athletic hero who donated his $40,000 in medal winnings from the 2006 Olympics to Darfurian refugees in Chad.

With the American media descending on Beijing this week and looking for a headline before the sports start, the move almost guarantees that China will take a beating in the foreign press. Those stories will not be about the impressive architecture of the Bird's Nest stadium, or how the new fleet of Olympic buses are running smoothly. Now, headlines will point to how a humanitarian essentially got kicked out of the country. The timing could not be worse.

The image hit is likely to cost China more than any activism Cheek would have done during the Games. Although he's the co-founder of Team Darfur, an international coalition of athletes pushing for reform in the Sudan, he's not exactly rabble-rouser. In our interview, Cheek said he was not planning any organized protests, and he had yet to set up any meetings with government officials. He's extremely sensitive to the fact that many Olympic athletes have trained their whole lives for this brief shining moment, and if taking up the Darfur cause is a distraction, he emphasizes that it's their right to stay out of it. He also knows that with Chinese Olympic officials sensitive to criticism during the Games, many athletes would risk their standing within their home countries if they spoke out. As an ex-Olympian, Cheek certainly wasn't going to steal the spotlight. Now China has given it to him.

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By RADIO FREE ASIA
August 1st, 2008

Key rights advocates and social activists across China will spend the Olympics confined to their homes under round the clock surveillance. Some have been warned off talking to the media, while others cannot be reached by phone.

Pro-democracy activist Jiang Qisheng served a four-year jail term in 1999 for "incitement to subversion" after he wrote an open letter calling for a commemoration of the victims of the 1989 armed crackdown on the Tiananmen democracy movement. Jiang frequently publishes articles in the overseas Chinese magazine Beijing Spring. He was approached by police and told to leave Beijing, Jiang's wife said:

"Police called my husband and wanted to talk to him, probably about the Olympics. Last time when police came to our home, they told us to leave the city during the Games. We turned down their request and insisted on staying. Then the police said they would put us under house arrest."  -- July 31, 2008

Constitutional scholar Zhang Zuhua was advised by police to make a trip outside Beijing during the Games:

"They want me to avoid being interviewed by foreign journalists. I told them that what they are doing has violated China's constitution and wasted taxpayers' money. I also told them that I am neither a criminal suspect, nor a terrorist and that what they are doing has no legal basis. The Games haven't started yet, but all kinds of security is now being put in place, and it doesn't feel like the friendly atmosphere you would expect at a sporting event."  -- July 31, 2008

Qi Zhiyong, a Beijing-based rights activist who lost a leg during the armed crackdown in the capital in 1989, said he had been ordered to leave the city for the duration of the Olympic Games.

"There are people watching me now. They arrived on July 22. They came to have a chat with me in mid-July, and they came again yesterday. The national security bureau told me that they were going to 'organize' me, so I asked them what they meant by 'organizing.' They didn't give the exact details of what they had in mind. But then it became clear that they wanted me to go away, to leave Beijing and go to a place far away from the Olympics venues. I said really that they should be ashamed of themselves, to say such a thing. I asked them on what basis they were saying this. They said that because I was connected to the June 4, 1989 incident, and because I was very active, and that I was implicated in Hu Jia's case, and so on, and so on. That I had never cooperated with the authorities to find a harmonious path."

"They said if I didn't go that they didn't have enough manpower, and therefore would have to take me to a detention center or prison, where they could keep an eye on me. It would be a lot easier for everyone if I just agreed to leave Beijing. I would get three meals a day whatever I chose to do, but that I absolutely must leave Beijing."--July 24, 2008

Shanghai civil rights lawyer Zheng Enchong, who acted as adviser to hundreds of evicted families from the city's urban redevelopment projects, said there were teams of 12 security personnel outside his apartment, watching him around the clock in shifts. His telephone had been cut off, and he was unable to leave his apartment. Zheng served a three-year jail term after he was accused of sending information on workers' protests to an overseas rights group. 

"The Olympics isn't supposed to be a political event. But the measures the authorities are taking right now are stricter than after June 4, 1989. They are using a lot of the same measures they employed at that time, and even more tightly enforced than before...The news of a big meeting following the killing of six Shanghai police officers had been broadcast overseas, and I think they were afraid that a lot of the newly arrived foreign journalists would approach me...for interviews...and that I would continue to give interviews."--July 24, 2008

Zha Jianguo, a former member of the banned China Democracy Party, was jailed nine years ago for "incitement to subvert state power." He has rejected attempts by police to keep tabs on him after his release and vows to continue to appeal his sentence.

"They were already watching me and following me 24 hours a day. Recently, they have had anyone coming to my home sign a register. Anyone who comes to visit me has to leave their name, address, telephone number and have their ID checked."--July 24, 2008

Bao Tong, former political secretary to late former premier Zhao Ziyang, has been under house arrest at his Beijing home since returning home from prison in the wake of the 1989 crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests.

"I hope that we will get a full report at the National People's Congress after the Olympics are over into exactly how much money, manpower, and resources were devoted to preventing foreign journalists from reporting on China, and from blocking off the voices of ordinary Chinese people from being heard either by the Chinese government or by the international community."--July 24, 2008

Jia Jianying is the wife of jailed pro-democracy activist He Depu, who was jailed for trying to set up the banned opposition China Democracy Party (CDP). She said that from July 24 she has been unable to leave her Beijing home. 

"I can't go out any more. They called me today to inform me...There are four people [watching me]--a public security officer, two security guards, and a person from the neighborhood committee. They told me that if I needed to go out, they would take me in their car. My work unit told me that this will take effect from July 20 to Sept. 20."--July 24, 2008

Yuan Weijing is the wife of Chen Guangcheng, who was jailed for four years last year after his meticulous documentation of abuses by family planning officials in the eastern province of Shandong. She has herself been under house arrest with the couple's young daughter for three years.

"There are more people [on surveillance duty] than before. Now there are a total of about 40 people working two shifts. They are all people I haven't seen before. There are also a bunch of strangers who have been sent to watch the main street in the village. I think they have sent more people here now because it's something to do with the Olympics...The Olympic torch relay will make its way across Shandong province from July 20-31. It is going through Yantai, Qingdao, Linyi, Qufu, Tai'an, and Jinan. I think there is increased security in our village because of the torch relay."--July 9, 2008

>> Original source

By Howard W. French | International Herald Tribune | The New York Times
July 31, 2008

SHANGHAI: This is it for me, folks. I'm finished. Done, meaning this is the last of the regularly scheduled columns readers will see from me in this spot.

I've had the distinct privilege of writing for this space for the past three years, most of that time holding forth on a weekly basis. As much as a privilege, it has been a deeply pleasurable challenge trying to say something interesting and, hopefully, new each time about China and its place in the world.

As a rhythm sets in, so does a humbling sense of hits and misses, guided in great measure by the invaluable feedback of one's readers, and whether one reaps criticism or praise, nitpicking or expansive analysis, it is readers that the column writer comes to cherish most.

As a final installment, this is an occasion meant for parting thoughts, and I offer them herewith. First, as a writer with an innately and sometimes intensely critical bent, one wishes to offer some general observations about China.

What this country has accomplished in the last generation deserves all of our respect. If any doubters remain, the China phenomenon is real. I have eschewed the use of the word miracle, which is often attached to China's development these days, not simply because it has become a cliché, but because it subtly detracts credit where credit is due.

China has achieved the tremendous momentum of growth and change that we journalists are always writing about not by miracle at all, but rather through the hard work and ingenuity of its people. These same factors, along with this society's extraordinary resilience, after experiences in the 20th century that were among the cruelest anywhere, should serve as an inspiration to downtrodden people on other continents.

China's example shows what kinds of remarkable results can follow when governments stop committing colossal blunders and grossly shackling or preying upon their own people. Add universal education to the mix, economic openness and basic law and order almost anywhere, and the results will soon attract that clichéd descriptive: a miracle.

China has had the great fortune of good timing, too, with its reforms coming at the start of a great wave of globalization. And there have been countless other factors behind its success that space won't allow exploring here, but any number of plodding states around the world would do well to learn from its example, from lagging regional giants like Nigeria and Pakistan to borderline failed states like Haiti and Myanmar.

A more interesting question may be, How appropriate is China's model for China itself? Rather than highlighting the country's many successes, the run-up to the Beijing Olympics has ironically spotlighted this country's more retrograde qualities, from environmental devastation and vast class disparities, to a repressive instinct that seems to lurk everywhere here.

This is supposed to be a grand, global celebration, but the people who run the country are so uptight they've frightened their own people, and risk turning off many of their overseas guests - that is, the guests who will make it here despite restrictive visa policies and an atmosphere that leaves no room for spontaneity.

Events of recent months have revealed this to be a deeply reactionary government, a state with manifold reasons for self-confidence, and yet one that seems spooked by its own shadow.

How else to explain the embarrassing need to carefully censor the Internet during the Games, as detailed in this newspaper on Thursday, or the need to jail lawyers, or buy off parents whose children were killed in flimsy schoolhouses during the recent Sichuan earthquake, or to tightly censor journalists, or to ban protests of all sorts?

What this all points to is the emergence of China as a new kind of Potemkin state: a place that invests heavily in the very old-fashioned idea that if you manipulate appearances and control the field of view, reality will gradually bend in the desired direction.

Most have learned from cartoons that the ostrich, by burying its head in the sand, does nothing to make predators disappear. And sure enough, the harder China has tried to exert control, to enforce illusions, the more noticeable the cracks in the façade become.

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