Human Rights: October 2008 Archives
By Jim Yardley | The New York Times
October 24, 2008
Hu Jia, a soft-spoken, bespectacled advocate for democracy and human rights in China, was awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, Europe's most prestigious human rights prize, on Thursday. The award was a pointed rebuke of China's ruling Communist Party that came as European leaders were arriving in Beijing for a weekend summit meeting.
Mr. Hu, 35, was given the prize by the European Parliament despite warnings from Beijing that his selection would harm relations with the European Union.
Last year, Mr. Hu testified via video link before a hearing of the European Parliament about China's human rights situation. Weeks later, he was jailed and later sentenced to three and a half years in prison for subversion based on his writings criticizing Communist Party rule.
Mr. Hu has been one of China's leading figures on a range of human rights issues, while also speaking out on behalf of AIDS patients and for environmental protection. He had been considered a front-runner for the Nobel Peace Prize, but lost to the former president of Finland, Martti Ahtisaari.
"Hu Jia is one of the real defenders of human rights in the People's Republic of China," said the president of the European Parliament, Hans-Gert Pöttering. "The European Parliament is sending out a signal of clear support to all those who support human rights in China."
The timing may make for a frosty weekend in Beijing, where European leaders are to meet with top Chinese officials at the Asia-Europe summit meeting, held every two years. This year, the global financial crisis is expected to dominate, and cooperation will be high on the agenda.
In Beijing on Thursday, Jose Manuel Barroso, the European Commission president, called for "unprecedented levels of global coordination."
"It's very simple: we swim together, or we sink together," he said in comments reported by The Associated Press.
Behind the scenes, China had lobbied against Mr. Hu's candidacy for the Sakharov Prize. On Oct. 16, Song Zhe, the Chinese ambassador to the European Union, wrote a critical letter to Mr. Pöttering.
"If the European Parliament should award this prize to Hu Jia, that would inevitably hurt the Chinese people once again and bring serious damage to China-E.U. relations," Mr. Song wrote, according to The Associated Press.
China had also warned against awarding Mr. Hu the Nobel Peace Prize, and a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Qin Gang, had described him in scathing terms as a convicted criminal.
"The Chinese government will be upset," said Teng Biao, a legal expert who has written essays with Mr. Hu. "But as a responsible nation that is trying to integrate into the international community, China has to understand that its conduct should follow international protocols. It should embrace the criticism as an opportunity to improve China's human rights condition."
Mr. Hu remains imprisoned in Beijing and could not be reached for comment. His wife, Zeng Jinyan, a prominent blogger and human rights activist, also could not be contacted. She has lived for months under house arrest with the couple's infant daughter.
The award to Mr. Hu is an embarrassment for the Communist Party two months after China's successful staging of the Olympic Games. During the Olympics, the Chinese government proved it could smoothly manage the world's biggest sporting event, but the government also prevented demonstrations at designated protest zones, instituted broad censorship restrictions on the domestic news media and placed numerous dissidents under house arrest or surveillance.
Mr. Hu's conviction in April was part of a nationwide crackdown against dissidents in what many human rights advocates considered a pre-Olympic silencing campaign. Mr. Hu, a Buddhist, has dedicated himself to a range of issues during the past 12 years, including environmental protection, helping AIDS patients, championing the legal rights of Chinese citizens and promoting greater democracy.
He also used a personal Web site and e-mail messages to become a one-man clearinghouse of information on rights abuses and other controversies that officials preferred to keep quiet.
"Whatever he does, he always stands in the forefront," Mr. Teng said in an earlier interview. "Everything he wrote, everything he said, is straight from his heart. We have poor people and marginalized people in society whose voices are being muzzled. Hu Jia was trying to be the spokesman for the unheard voices."
Mr. Hu graduated from Beijing's Capital University of Economics and Business in 1996 and almost immediately plunged into China's nascent civil society. He traveled to Inner Mongolia to plant trees as a measure to slow the advance of the Gobi Desert.
By 2000, China was facing the rapid spread of AIDS, a problem the government had initially denied and remained reluctant to publicly confront. Mr. Hu formed a nongovernmental organization, Loving Source, and focused on caring for people infected with H.I.V. in a blood-selling scandal in Henan Province.
Gao Yaojie, a prominent advocate for AIDS patients in China, recalled how Mr. Hu once rode a bicycle down a rutted dirt road to reach an isolated village decimated by AIDS. The road became narrower and potted with holes until Mr. Hu simply put the bike on his shoulder and walked to deliver help to a village where local officials were trying to cover up the problem.
"We didn't do anything wrong," Dr. Gao said in an interview earlier this month. "The only thing we did was to help H.I.V.-positive people. But we were always under great pressure from the government."
Mr. Hu later began joining Internet petition campaigns calling for the release of political prisoners, while also calling on the authorities to uphold legal rights under the Chinese Constitution.
His activism quickly made him a target. In 2006, he spent 168 days under house arrest. Rather than disappear from public view, he produced a documentary, "Prisoners in Freedom City," which included video of state security agents harassing his wife as she tried to leave their apartment complex, which is known as Bo Bo Freedom City.
Indeed, as Mr. Hu faced constant surveillance and harassment, he continued to use the Internet to push for political reform and publicize abuses. His testimony via video link before the European parliamentary committee came last November.
"It is ironic that one of the people in charge of organizing the Olympic Games is the head of the Bureau of Public Security, which is responsible for so many human rights violations," he testified. "It is very serious that the official promises are not being kept before the Games."
TODAYonline.com (Singapore) | MediaCorp Press
October 21, 2008
Despite hopes the Olympics would improve human rights, China's crackdown on dissidents before and during the Games has likely set the stage for a lasting period of even tighter controls, government critics say.
Beijing-based AIDS campaigner Wan Yanhai is back at work following a government-imposed shutdown of his activities during the recent Summer Olympics, but he's treading carefully.
He said police have tailed him recently and the government last month applied new pressure with a surprise tax probe of his Aizhixing Institute, which advocates for the rights of AIDS victims, a touchy subject in China.
"With the Olympics over, it looks like they have even more time to give us trouble," Wan told AFP.
They also lament the failure of a Chinese to win this year's Nobel Peace Prize as another lost opportunity to advance human rights and bring greater openness to the communist-ruled nation.
Wan, 44, who works from a cramped and dingy office, said China was unlikely to loosen the tightened grip taken in the Games run-up after developing an even deeper understanding of dissident activities during the crackdown.
"That is important to understand," said Wan.
As the Games approached, critics say China harassed, detained or jailed dissidents, and ramped up security over the restive regions of Tibet and Xinjiang.
Among those tried in court were Hu Jia, an AIDS and human rights campaigner and one of the best-known dissidents within China, who was sentenced to three and half years in jail in April on subversion charges.
Hu's wife Zeng Jinyan, who lives under unofficial house arrest in Beijing, said the situation was grim.
"A lot of people are scared (of speaking out)," she told AFP during a furtive recent interview.
Chinese authorities regularly insist that the cases of government critics arrested are handled properly under Chinese law, and has repeatedly rejected charges that it has unfairly cracked down on dissidents.
However, speculation was rife this month that the Nobel committee would seek to punish China's perceived heavy-handedness by awarding the peace prize to Hu or another Chinese rights campaigner.
The award went to Finnish peace negotiator Martti Ahtisaari, disappointing Chinese activists, who said Beijing's growing economic clout was muting vital foreign encouragement of rights campaigners here.
"If the Nobel Peace Prize had been given to (a Chinese), this would have been very encouraging. That is something that China needs," said Dai Qing, 68, a journalist who has campaigned against the harsh environment and social costs of China's Three Gorges Dam Project.
Dissident writer Liu Xiabo, who participated in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, scoffed at those who believed the Olympics would further human rights in China.
"Those people don't understand the Communist Party," he said, estimating that it could take 20 years before the party altered its approach of stamping out any voices that challenge its supremacy.
That could mean trouble ahead, he added, noting rising discontent and frequent outbursts of violence throughout China by marginalised segments of society.
"China needs major (political) reforms or there will be an explosion. But it is very hard for the government to do that," Liu said.
For now, activists such as Wan are keeping their heads down. He tries to work with the government as much as possible, the memory of a detention two years ago still fresh.
"After that experience, I've become more careful because you know, you have a responsibility to your family and, actually, the government has put a lot of pressure on me recently," he said.
By Edward Wong | The New York Times
October 19, 2008
KHOTAN, China -- The grand mosque that draws thousands of Muslims each week in this oasis town has all the usual trappings of piety: dusty wool carpets on which to kneel in prayer, a row of turbans and skullcaps for men without headwear, a wall niche facing the holy city of Mecca in the Arabian desert.
But large signs posted by the front door list edicts that are more Communist Party decrees than Koranic doctrines.
The imam's sermon at Friday Prayer must run no longer than a half-hour, the rules say. Prayer in public areas outside the mosque is forbidden. Residents of Khotan are not allowed to worship at mosques outside of town.
One rule on the wall says that government workers and nonreligious people may not be "forced" to attend services at the mosque -- a generous wording of a law that prohibits government workers and Communist Party members from going at all.
"Of course this makes people angry," said a teacher in the mosque courtyard, who would give only a partial name, Muhammad, for fear of government retribution. "Excitable people think the government is wrong in what it does. They say that government officials who are Muslims should also be allowed to pray."
To be a practicing Muslim in the vast autonomous region of northwestern China called Xinjiang is to live under an intricate series of laws and regulations intended to control the spread and practice of Islam, the predominant religion among the Uighurs, a Turkic people uneasy with Chinese rule.
The edicts touch on every facet of a Muslim's way of life. Official versions of the Koran are the only legal ones. Imams may not teach the Koran in private, and studying Arabic is allowed only at special government schools.
Two of Islam's five pillars -- the sacred fasting month of Ramadan and the pilgrimage to Mecca called the hajj -- are also carefully controlled. Students and government workers are compelled to eat during Ramadan, and the passports of Uighurs have been confiscated across Xinjiang to force them to join government-run hajj tours rather than travel illegally to Mecca on their own.
Government workers are not permitted to practice Islam, which means the slightest sign of devotion, a head scarf on a woman, for example, could lead to a firing.
By Edward Wong | The New York Times
October 17, 2008
The first sign of trouble was powder in the baby's urine. Then there was blood. By the time the parents took their son to the hospital, he had no urine at all.
Kidney stones were the problem, doctors told the parents. The baby died on May 1 in the hospital, just two weeks after the first symptoms appeared. His name was Yi Kaixuan. He was 6 months old.
The parents filed a lawsuit on Monday in the arid northwest province of Gansu, where the family lives, asking for compensation from Sanlu Group, the maker of the powdered baby formula that Kaixuan had been drinking. It seemed like a clear-cut liability case; since last month, Sanlu has been at the center of China's biggest contaminated food crisis in years. But as in two other courts dealing with related lawsuits, judges have so far declined to hear the case.
Tainted infant formula is the latest in a long string of food and drug safety problems that have exposed corruption and inefficiency among China's regulators. But the problem goes well beyond the inability of regulators to police a huge, dynamic economy. Companies that produce shoddy goods rarely face financial penalties from the legal system, run by the Communist Party.
Some lawyers and judges are making great efforts in China to establish the power of the courts. Still, courts often remain passive pawns in the party's efforts to handle big disputes behind closed doors.
"I felt myself falling apart when he died, and my wife even avoids thinking about it now," the baby's father, Yi Yongsheng, 30, said by telephone from the city of Xian, where he works menial construction jobs to send money home. "I don't place too much hope in the lawsuit. I just want to ask for justice."
Chinese officials, under pressure to promote fast rates of economic growth and to enforce social stability, routinely favor producers over consumers. Product liability lawsuits remain difficult to file and harder still to win, especially if the company involved is state-owned or has close connections to the government.
Officials also view high-profile lawsuits as a potential political threat and go to great lengths to silence the plaintiffs rather than allowing the wheels of justice to turn. In the milk crisis, officials in several provinces have put pressure on many involved, including parents, lawyers and judges, to drop the issue, said legal scholars and lawyers who have volunteered to help the parents.
By BBC News
17 October 2008
JAMES MILES
Correspondent for the Economist
"It was mainly a psychological difference, we had been widely flouting the rules before, leaving Beijing to report in the provinces without seeking advance approval as was officially required.
"So when the new regulations were introduced, we were still travelling just as much but without the fear of the knock on the door by the police, without the need to change from hotel to hotel to remain under the radar screen.
"But we were still frequently encountering local officials who either didn't know or said they didn't know about the new Olympic regulations or were determined to ignore them.
"There was one remarkable incident, shortly after the new regulations were introduced early last year, when I went to Henan province.
"As I expected, I was stopped by local officials. But I called the Foreign Ministry in Beijing, and remarkably, the local officials apologised to me and disappeared, leaving me with startled villagers who said this was the first time they'd ever managed to openly speak with foreign journalists.
"But since then, I've encountered the same kind of difficulties as before the regulations. A few days ago, I was out in the western region of Xinjiang, and was detained for several hours by local police.
"There are key parts in the country that remain very difficult to get into, and the most obvious one is Tibet. Tibet wasn't mentioned specifically in the Olympic regulations, in theory they apply to the whole of China, but orally Chinese officials said Tibet remained excluded and we still had to seek permission."
MICHAEL BRISTOW
BBC correspondent
"These rules were a small step forward in that they allowed foreign reporters to legitimately travel across China without first getting permission.
"But, like many rules and laws issued by the Chinese central government, they weren't always implemented properly.
"In fact, the Chinese authorities, whether in some far-flung village or in central Beijing, would simply ignore the rules if it suited them.
"They often intimidate foreign reporters - by detaining them or following them in unmarked cars - which prevents us doing our jobs.
"I was hassled by the authorities in Sichuan while trying to report on the grief of parents who lost children during the earthquake.
"And, like other foreign news organisations, under these rules the BBC was not welcome to roam Tibetan areas asking questions."
SHIOZAWA EIICHI
Reporter for the Japanese agency Kyodo News
"After the rules were introduced, we didn't need to get local government permission to travel to places, so that made my life a lot easier.
"Before, if we had no permission, we feared getting caught by the police. Once the rules came in, we could relax. Now we have to take care again.
"It's sometimes easier for me than it is for American or European reporters in China, because I am Asian and can sometimes pass for being Chinese.
"That means I can go to places that others would not be able to get to because they would be detected. Last week I went to Xinjiang.
"One bad aspect of the regulations was that it made it more difficult for us to interview local officials.
"Before the Olympic reporting rules, they would often organise events that would allow us to meet them.
CALUM MACLEOD
China correspondent for USA Today
"After the rules came in, they said we could organise things ourselves, which was not always easy."
"The biggest beneficiaries of these rules were TV and radio journalists because they require more people and equipment to do their jobs, and so are more visible.
"For the print media, it's easier to be less conspicuous.
"In the past, the rules stated that all foreign journalists needed approval before interviewing people outside Beijing and Shanghai, but these rules were largely ignored.
"What the new regulations did, in effect, was to legitimise reporting activities that were already taking place.
"Even while these rules were in place, I've still been detained in local areas and had my reporting restricted by officials who did not know the rules or did not care about them.
"But, as foreign journalists, it did mean we had a piece of paper to show them.
"We need these very minimal rules to be continued - and extended to China's own journalists."
BARBARA LUETHI
Asia correspondent for Swiss Television
"These rules looked good on paper, but they weren't implemented properly.
"In Beijing, when I was stopped I could pull out the rule booklet and tell the police I was allowed to be there.
"Or I could call the Foreign Ministry and they would tell the police to let you go.
But this didn't work in the countryside. When I went to a village to do a story, I would be stopped anyway. My tapes would be confiscated and would be taken to the police station.
"When the Olympics arrived, despite the new rules, the Chinese government was so nervous that they tightened up control or made new rules.
"The authorities would also threaten interviewees. They would not stop me, but this was another tool to control us."
Local journalists were not affected by the change in regulations, but they, too, face restrictions in their work, especially when working for state-run news sources.
Chinese journalist working for state-run media
(who wishes to remain anonymous)
"The government's attitude towards the media has always been on a need-to-know basis.
"Officials feel that if they have something to say, they hold a press conference. They have no need to answer journalists' questions individually. They don't work to the media's timings.
"The Olympics itself will not bring changes overnight, regardless whether its for the foreign or domestic media. It is just one among many things that will only change gradually.
"The government has done things differently for the Olympics, but I can't say whether they will regress or keep improving things after the Games.
"All I can say is, I haven't seen much change in how I do my job."
By RADIO FREE ASIA
07 October 2008
Lawyers in China are warned against taking on cases related to a widening scandal over tainted milk.
Chinese lawyers have slammed a government directive banning them from taking on cases related to the contaminated milk powder scandal, which has killed at least four infants and sickened tens of thousands with kidney problems.
Members of the country's nascent legal profession condemned moves from government legal affairs bureaus to ban attorneys from taking on cases related to the scandal, which surfaced after infant milk formula made by New Zealand-invested Sanlu Group was found to be laced with the industrial chemical melamine.
"The Beijing Lawyers' Association called a meeting with several of its serving officer members and the justice department to discuss the milk powder cases," Beijing-based lawyer Li Jinglin said.
"At that meeting, those in charge said they had received a very clear message from the Hebei provincial lawyers' association that we should not involve ourselves in Sanlu-related cases."
"At the time I thought this demand was preposterous. Chinese citizens have the right to engage the services of any lawyer within China's borders that they choose," Li added.
Sanlu Group is headquartered in Shijiazhuang, in the northern province of Hebei, which surrounds Beijing.
'Unbelievable'
"This is unbelievable," Zhang Yuanxin, a practicing attorney and serving officer in the Xinjiang Lawyers' Association said.
"It appears that the actions of certain departments in government have set back the professional development of the legal profession," he said. "They have stripped ordinary citizens of their right to sue, and they are interfering in the affairs of the judiciary. This should not be tolerated."
Lawyers said Chinese citizens had the right to file civil lawsuits in cases of wrongdoing or negligence.
"The job of a lawyer is to act as a representative on behalf of citizens, to help them win justice...They have a duty to file lawsuits on behalf of victims, and they have a right to do this under law," Zhang said.
When the scandal broke in September, lawyers immediately formed voluntary groups to offer legal assistance to distraught and angry parents whose children had drunk the tainted milk, often offering their services free of charge to those on low incomes.
Since then, they have reported being ordered not to touch melamine-related cases, and they have declined to answer any questions on the subject.
By Human Rights in China (HRIC)
October 08, 2008
Human Rights in China (HRIC) has learned that on October 8, 2008, around 1:00 P.M., hundreds of peasants organized a peaceful sit-in and blocked traffic at a major road in Sanjiang town (三江镇), Guangdong province. Witnesses reported that more than five hundred police officers, military police (武警), and riot police were deployed to disperse the crowd. Witnesses also said that police detained protesters and used batons to beat them, leaving some seriously injured and unconscious. Several observers who used their mobile phones to record the incident were also taken away by police.
Villagers staged the sit-in after Typhoon Hagupit (黑格比) destroyed a river dam in Shenlei village (深呂村). The resultant flooding destroyed farmland, fish ponds, shrimp ponds, and other property on which village farmers depended for their livelihood. Villagers reported that a few months ago, local officials removed and sold all of the fountain palm trees which had been planted next to the dam, leaving the dam unprotected against extreme weather. Local peasants attributed the collapse of the dam to the removal of the trees and had previously approached the local government to request assistance after the flood. So far, they have received nothing.
"This is not only a case of police brutality," said Sharon Hom, executive director of Human Rights in China. "This involves a bigger issue of official theft of public property--cutting down and selling the palm trees--resulting in a man-made disaster that wiped out the peasants' livelihood."
This kind of violation by local officials is a pervasive phenomenon in China. HRIC urges the Central government to take action to prevent these illegal acts and protect the people's property rights enshrined in the Constitution.
Villagers reported that their phones were blocked and the village is now under tight security, and is guarded by plainclothes policemen.
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