Internet: 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."

>> Read the complete report

Agence France-Presse - Hong Kong
December 13, 2007

A leading Chinese anti-pollution campaigner Thursday launched a new website that names more than 4,000 companies, including 40 multi-national firms, belching out dangerous emissions across China.

Ma Jun, the author of "China's Water Crisis" and head of an environmental think tank, launched the China Air Pollution Map which pinpoints the worst polluters in factories and power plants south of the Yangtze River.

He hopes the map will help China tackle its worsening pollution problem.

"Access to information is a pre-condition for meaningful public participation," Ma said.

He added he hoped the site will shame companies into "providing the public with an open explanation and taking corrective action."

The new map, which has taken 10 months to pull together, uses data already publicly available from government departments and official media on factories that are breaking emission standards.

Out of the 4,000 violations, more than half are in southern China.

Visitors to the site (air.ipe.org.cn) will be able to view rankings of various air pollutant levels, and compare them to other cities.

The project aims to follow the success of a similar map run by Ma's Beijing-based Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, which has focused on polluters of China's waterways.

The scheme has sparked numerous media reports on the worst offenders and, in some cases, convinced companies to improve their treatment facilities.

The new scheme is backed by global environmental organisation WWF and ADM Capital Foundation.

"We believe there is a strong correspondence beteeen transparency and improved environmental regulation," Liam Slater, head of WWF's Hong Kong climate programme, told reporters.

At a press conference to launch the site, Ma said China has set tough environmental standards nationally, but they are often ignored on a local level.

Pollution has become a major problem in China as the economy booms and is second only to the United States in greenhouse gas emissions, which are blamed for global warming.