News: April 2008 Archives
By REUTERS | The New York Times
April 29, 2008
China's lawyers face official harassment, meddling, even jail for defending suspects and sensitive causes, a rights group said in a new report, adding to criticism of the nation's rights record before the Olympics.
Human Rights Watch says the ruling Chinese Communist Party's avowed commitment to rights and rule of law has not been matched by its treatment of lawyers seeking to defend those principles.
"Chinese lawyers continue to face huge obstacles in defending citizens whose rights have been violated and ordinary criminal suspects," the New York-based monitoring group said in the report. "China has a long way to go to lift arbitrary restrictions on lawyers and establish genuine rule of law."
The criticisms and demands for better protection for lawyers will add to a long list of human rights complaints about China ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games in August.
By BBC World News
April 28, 2008
Police in southern China have discovered a factory manufacturing Free Tibet flags, media reports say.
The factory in Guangdong had been completing overseas orders for the flag of the Tibetan government-in-exile.
Workers said they thought they were just making colourful flags and did not realise their meaning.
But then some of them saw TV images of protesters holding the emblem and they alerted the authorities, according to Hong Kong's Ming Pao newspaper.
Tibet independence
The factory owner reportedly told police the emblems had been ordered from outside China, and he did not know that they stood for an independent Tibet.
Workers who had grown suspicious checked the meaning of the flag by going online.
Thousands of flags had already been packed for shipping.
Police believe that some may already have been sent overseas, and could appear in Hong Kong during the Olympic torch relay there this week.
Chinese Embassy Secretly Organizes Overseas Chinese Students to Support Olympic Torch Relay in Japan
By Wang Riyue | The Epoch Times
April 25, 2008
Chinese Student and Scholar Associations (CSSA) in Japanese universities have received notice from the Chinese Embassy, asking them to mobilize all possible manpower to Nagano on April 26 to support the Beijing Olympic Torch Relay.
Sources disclosed that yellow T-shirts will be distributed to them by the Embassy and that the Embassy will also give every one a bottle of mineral water and a pen. All expenses incurred will be paid by the Embassy.
In addition, participants were told by the embassy to claim that the activity is spontaneously organized by unofficial organizations, which have nothing to do with the embassy.
Sources also revealed that the Chinese Embassy in Japan has received orders to prevent human rights protests similar to those that happened in the UK and France from recurring in Japan at all costs.
It has been repeatedly exposed by media that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) manipulates overseas Chinese students to work for them. It incites students and secretly develops spies to infiltrate students.
Wei Jingsheng, a well-known Chinese democracy activist pointed out that the CCP on one hand deceives and makes the public fanatical with its control of media, especially Chinese media. On the other hand it threatens and lures students with gains through the operation of its embassies and consulates, overseas education bureaus, and student associations.
By JOE McDONALD, AP Business Writer | via (uncensored) Yahoo!PHILIPPINES news
April 24, 2008
An activist group that wants peace in Darfur said Thursday it will organize protests against Beijing Olympics sponsors that it said are failing to use the Games to press China to help end fighting in the region.
Dream for Darfur said 16 companies including General Electric Co., Coca-Cola Co. and Microsoft Corp. showed "moral cowardice" and will be the target of protests. In a 61-page report, the group said Eastman Kodak Co., Adidas AG and McDonald's Corp. have taken adequate action and would not face protests.
With actress Mia Farrow as its spokeswoman, Dream for Darfur is the most prominent of a series of groups that are waging a public relations campaign to prod sponsors to lobby Beijing to pressure its ally Sudan to end the conflict.
"The majority of the 2008 Olympic corporate sponsors in this report have distinguished themselves for moral cowardice in the hopes of safe profitability," the report said.
Dream for Darfur said it also would protest at company headquarters and urge viewers to turn off commercials during the Games in August. It said the first demonstration will be this weekend against Coca-Cola but gave no other details.
By Andrew Jacobs | The New York Times
24 August 2008
In little more than 100 days, China will open its arms to a deluge of foreigners, many of whom will be pleasantly surprised to find a dizzying array of designer boutiques and painfully hip martini bars that divert expatriates and middle-class Chinese in this once dowdy capital.
But even as Beijing is promising to welcome 1.5 million visitors to the Olympic Games, public security officials are tightening controls over daily life and introducing visa restrictions that are causing anxiety among the 250,000 foreigners who have settled here in recent years.
The visa rules, which were introduced last week with little explanation, restrict many visitors to 30-day stays, replacing flexible, multiple-entry visas that had allowed people to remain for up to a year. The new rules make it harder for foreigners to live and work in Beijing without applying for residency permits, which can be difficult to obtain. The restrictions are also complicating the lives of businesspeople in Hong Kong, Taiwan, South Korea and Singapore used to crossing the border with ease.
"I can't begin to explain how serious this is going to be," said Richard Vuylsteke, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong. "A barrier like this is going to have a real ripple effect on business."
The government wants to present a blemish-free image of Beijing for the Olympics. Police officers have cleared away street beggars and closed down shops selling pirated DVDs, while also forcing some migrant workers to go back to the countryside.
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Because the government has not issued formal guidelines about the new visa rules, rumors and uncertainty have been rife, and travel agents say that a handful of tourists have been denied visas without evident rationale.
Cloris Yip, the manager of Smiley Travel in Hong Kong, cited the example of two tourists, a Swiss and a German; the Swiss citizen received a 30-day visa while his German companion was given one for five days. The men, she said, canceled their trip.
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By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS | via The New York Times
April 23, 2008
European business officials warned Wednesday that anti-French protests in China could spark a backlash against Chinese exports, while reports surfaced that protesters had confronted an American outside an outlet of French retailer Carrefour.
The incident with the American occurred when dozens of protesters confronted 22-year-old James Galvin, an English teacher working in the southern city of Zhuzhou, mistakenly thinking he might have been French.
Galvin was quickly whisked away by police and was not hurt in the Sunday incident, said Helen Claire Sievers, executive director of the WorldTeach program based in Cambridge, Mass.
''It was frightening for him because he didn't know what was going on,'' Sievers said.
France and high-profile French retailer Carrefour have been targeted by Chinese nationalists who felt insulted by raucous anti-China protests that accompanied the April 7 Paris leg of the Olympic torch relay.
Anger spiked this past weekend with protests at the French Embassy in Beijing and at Carrefour outlets in at least nine Chinese cities. Carrefour has denied rumors that it supports the Dalai Lama, Tibet's exiled Buddhist leader.
Joerg Wuttke, president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, said a boycott of French products, as some activists are calling for, would likely hurt Chinese workers and companies, and could be met by similar action against Chinese products in Europe.
By Jill Drew and Maureen Fan | The Washington Post
April 21, 2008
China has spent billions of dollars to fulfill its commitment to stage a grand Olympics. Athletes will compete in world-class stadiums. New highways and train lines crisscross Beijing. China built the world's largest airport terminal to welcome an expected 500,000 foreign visitors. Thousands of newly planted trees and dozens of colorful "One World, One Dream" billboards line the main roads of a spruced-up capital. The security system has impressed the FBI and Interpol.
But beneath the shimmer and behind the slogan, China is under criticism for suppressing Tibetan protests, sealing off large portions of the country to foreign reporters, harassing and jailing dissidents and not doing enough to curb air pollution. It has not lived up to a pledge in its Olympic action plan, released in 2002, to "be open in every aspect," and a constitutional amendment adopted in 2004 to recognize and protect human rights has not shielded government critics from arrest.
The two realities show that when China had to build something new to fulfill expectations, it has largely delivered. But in areas that touch China's core interests, Olympic pledges come second.
"To ensure a successful Olympic Games, the government did make some technical and strategic efforts to improve the environment, human rights and press freedom. They did make some progress. But in these three areas, there's a long, long way to go," said Cheng Yizhong, an editor who tracks China's Olympic preparations.
With the Games less than four months away, the International Olympic Committee is scrambling to nail down specifics of how China will treat criticism of its actions during the event. Pressed this month, IOC President Jacques Rogge clarified that athletes would be allowed to speak freely in Beijing's Olympic venues, calling it an "absolute" human right.
"I can't help but feel cynical about all this," said David Wallechinsky, an Olympic historian, who said the IOC should have been more forceful with China earlier. "What are they going to do, take away the Games?"
France télévision - france2.com
Le 20 avril 2008
De nouvelles manifestations anti-occidentales ont eu lieu dimanche dans plusieurs ville de la République populaire.
Les rassemblements de dimanche
Plus d'un millier de personnes se sont rassemblées devant le magasin Carrefour de la ville de Xian (nord-ouest). Des attroupements similaires ont eu lieu à Harbin (nord-est) et Jinan (est), selon la même source.
Des manifestations antifrançaises avaient déjà eu lieu la veille dans cinq villes chinoises. Elles visaient principalement l'enseigne d'hypermarchés Carrefour, très présente dans le pays, pour protester contre l'attitude de la France sur le Tibet. Dans une interview publiée dans le "Journal du Dimanche", le président du directoire de Carrefour, José Luis Duran, dit prendre la situation "très au sérieux".
Selon une "source informée, citant la police", a indiqué l'agence France Presse sans plus de précision, les centaines, voire les milliers de manifestants de la ville industrielle de Wuhan (centre) étaient "très bien organisés". Mais comme pour les autres cortèges, il était difficile de mesurer les niveaux de spontanéité et d'encadrement du mouvement. Certains portaient un drapeau français maculé de croix gammées et traitant Jeanne d'Arc de "prostituée". Des manifestations de l'ampleur de celles de Wuhan sont rares en Chine et sont souvent encadrées, voire organisées, par des organisations officielles, comme la Ligue de la jeunesse communiste.
La fièvre semblait retombée dimanche matin avec le déploiement d'effectifs policiers aux abords des magasins cibles de la vindicte des manifestants. Le calme était apparemment revenu à Wuhan et Qingdao (est).
Le gouvernement chinois n'a pas condamné les appels au boycott des produits français.
>> france2.com
By BBC World News
April 19, 2008
Protesters in several Chinese cities have gathered to demand a boycott of French products and denounce campaigns for Tibetan independence.
Hundreds of people demonstrated in cities including Beijing, Wuhan, Hefei, Kunming, and Qingdao - often outside stores of the French chain Carrefour.
Passions ran high, but the protests were closely patrolled by police.
Protesters say they are angry at the scale of protests that accompanied the Olympic torch relay in Paris.
They have also denounced French President Nicolas Sarkozy's refusal to confirm whether he will attend the opening ceremony of the Games.
Pictures from the central city of Wuhan showed large crowds congregating outside a Carrefour supermarket.
'No to French goods'
The chain, which reportedly operates more than 100 outlets in China, has restated its support for Beijing's hosting of the Olympics this August, but is accused by some protesters of backing the campaign for Tibetan independence.
By RADIO FREE ASIA
17 April 2008
China is intensifying its crackdown on Tibet after the largest anti-Chinese protests there in almost 50 years. But many monks have refused to fly the Chinese flag on monastery roofs, sources in China and India say.
In addition to reports from remote Qinghai province this week that authorities have arrested Tibetan feminist and writer Jamyang Kyi, Tibetans say five other Qinghai Tibetan community leaders are in custody as well. All are residents of Machen [in Chinese, Maqin] county in Golog [Goulou] prefecture, and all are now being held in the provincial capital, Xining, sources said.
The five are Golog Dape, a popular comedian, leader of the Gangchen performance group, and animal rights activist; Dolma Kyi, a singer, activist, and founder of the folk-music company Gangchen Metok; Palchen Kyab, principal of the private Mayul Dargye school, founded with donations from Tibetan nomads; Lhundrup, Mayul Dargye's assistant principal; and Sonam Dorje, a teacher.
Golog prefecture State Security Bureau officers took the five into custody March 31 and moved them to Xining, sources said. No information on charges against them was available. "No relatives have been allowed to visit them," one source in Qinghai said.
An official at the Golog prefecture Public Security Bureau refused to comment and referred questions to her superior, who also refused to comment and hung up.
By DENIS D. GRAY Associated Press Writer | ABC News
April 17, 2008
FRIENDSHIP BRIDGE, Nepal-Tibet Border
Three lithe Chinese security men shift silently into position so they are anchored abreast exactly midway across Friendship Bridge, high above a Himalayan river gorge.
It's the only international gateway into Tibet. As a small group of foreigners approaches, the guards' unspoken message is clear: the rebellious territory behind them is off-limits.
After anti-government riots erupted March 14, Beijing closed off Tibet to foreign and domestic tourists and cracked down on Tibetans trying to escape. And China's security apparatus doesn't stop at the border.
Chinese security police in athletic wear can be seen lounging in tea shops and strolling the sole street in the border town of Liping. They shadow three Associated Press journalists from the moment they arrive, ordering them not to take photographs -- on Nepalese territory.
And in the capital Katmandu, Tibetan exiles say China is pressuring the Nepalese government to crush anti-Chinese activities by the world's second-largest Tibetan exile community.
"The Chinese asked us unofficially to cooperate on securing the border. They are far stricter now," said one Nepali immigration official, requesting anonymity since he was not authorized to speak to the press. "Even an Austrian lady who was studying Chinese in Lhasa (Tibet's capital) was not allowed to enter."
Before the current unrest, some 1,500 foreigners a month would make the rough, four-hour car journey on a Chinese-built road from Katmandu to the border and then on to Lhasa.
Now, Chinese authorities have reversed an earlier decision to reopen Tibet to tourism on May 1, tour operators in Beijing said last week. There has been no official indication of when the border would reopen. The International Campaign for Tibet, a U.S.-based activist group, says it has information the region may remain sealed until after the Beijing Olympics in August.
By RADIO FREE ASIA
April 15, 2008
Chinese authorities in Tibet have arrested a leading Tibetan writer, television producer, and performer in the midst of a major crackdown on anti-Chinese protests in the region.
Plainclothes state security officers escorted Jamyang Kyi, who has travelled widely and performed and lectured in the United States, from her office at state-owned Qinghai TV on April 1, an authoritative source told RFA's Tibetan service. "She never returned," a source in Siling [in Chinese, Xining] said. "People were speculating that she was detained in a guesthouse for interrogation."
Another authoritative source in Beijing said she had been formally arrested by the Xining Public Security Bureau, although the charges against her were unknown. In China, a formal arrest almost always precedes a conviction. "Security people went to Jamyang Kyi's house to search her computer, her mailing list, and contact numbers and took all these away," another source in Xining said.
Television producer, musician, activist, blogger
Jamyang Kyi, in her 40s, has worked as a producer in the Tibetan-language section of state-run Qinghai TV for two decades. She is well-known among Tibetans as an activist on women's issues, and she toured the United States to sing and lecture in 2006.
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS | The New York Times
April 14, 2008
Beijing has backtracked on a proposed public smoking ban ahead of this summer's Olympics, with a city official saying Monday that restaurants will no longer be included due to concerns it would hurt their business.
Lighting up in restaurants will be allowed after the citywide ban goes into effect May 1 as long as they have separate smoking and nonsmoking areas, said Zhang Peili, an official with Beijing's municipal government supervising the ban.
Restaurants that do not comply will be fined $714, Zhang said, though she added that implementing the regulation will be ''extremely difficult.''
By RADIO FREE ASIA
April 04, 2008
Paramilitary police in China's southwestern Sichuan province fired on a crowd of Tibetan protesters demanding the release of two detained monks, killing and wounding an unknown number of people, Radio Free Asia (RFA) reports.
At about 8 p.m. April 3, paramilitary People's Armed Police fired on a crowd of several hundred monks from the Tongkor monastery in Kardze (in Chinese, Ganzi) and several hundred residents, witnesses told RFA's Tibetan service.
The witnesses, who declined to be identified, said they believed 15 people were killed and dozens injured, with scores more unaccounted for as of April 4. Phone communication with the region was cut off after the shooting and no further information was available.
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS | The New York Times
April 07, 2008
Western reporters in China have received harassing phone calls, e-mails and text messages, some with death threats, supposedly from ordinary Chinese complaining about alleged bias in coverage of recent anti-Chinese protests in Tibet.
The harassment began two weeks ago and was largely targeted at foreign television broadcasters, CNN in particular. But the campaign broadened in recent days after the mobile phone numbers and other contact information for reporters from The Associated Press, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today were posted on several Web sites, including a military affairs chat site.
''The Chinese people don't welcome you American running dog. Your reports twist the facts and will suffer the curse of heaven,'' said one e-mail received by the AP. One text message said: ''One of these days I'm going to kill you.''
Those sending the messages and making the calls say they are ordinary Chinese, a claim that could not be verified.
Spokesmen for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the government's State Council Information Office and the national police ministry did not respond to telephone calls and faxed questions Monday seeking comment about the threats.
By JOHN F. BURNS | The New York Times
April 6, 2008
LONDON -- Protesters objecting to China's human rights record clashed with the British police on Sunday as the Olympic torch was carried through London on its way to the summer Olympic Games in Beijing.
Thousands of demonstrators crowded the streets of central London, and the police that at least 30 people were arrested.
Carried by a chain of British sporting stars and entertainment celebrities, the torch completed its eight-hour, 31-mile journey from the new soccer stadium at Wembley in west London to the principal site for the 2010 summer Olympics at Stratford in east London. But along the way, numerous protesters who broke through police barriers were wrestled to the ground as they sought to grab the torch, and the police said one man was beaten off as he ran toward the flame with a fire extinguisher.
What had been billed by the organizers as an occasion to celebrate Olympic sporting ideals turned instead into a daylong contest between China's supporters -- many of them Chinese students and people of Chinese origin living in Britain -- and groups and individuals who gathered to protest China's recent crackdown in Tibet and its wider human rights record, including its labor camps. To get the torch safely to its destination, more than 2,000 police were deployed along the route.
By Caylan Ford | The Epoch Times
April 02, 2008
Over 100 Falun Gong adherents reported tortured to death since January
As the Chinese regime's violent repression continues in Tibet, another group claims they too are experiencing heightened persecution.
Representatives of the Falun Gong spiritual practice say that, since January of this year the Chinese regime has tortured over 100 Falun Gong adherents to death, mostly in reeducation-through-labour camps.
The New York-based Falun Dafa Information Center claims to have received reports from inside China of over 1,878 arrests of Falun Gong adherents since January. The Centre says that authorities in at least 29 Chinese provinces have been conducting door-to-door sweeps in search of Falun Gong practitioners or anyone in possession of Falun Gong-related books or materials.
According to reports relayed by Falun Gong inside China, the Public Security Bureau has been offering cash rewards to citizens who turn in Falun Gong adherents. In one city in Shandong province, authorities have announced a reward of up to 3,000 Yuan for information leading to the arrest of a Falun Gong practitioner.
Once detained, the Falun Gong adherents are sent without trial to reeducation-through-labour camps, where reports indicate they face torture and other forms of abuse.
The Falun Gong website Minghui.org, which receives and compiles accounts of persecution from inside China, has reported that 129 Falun Gong adherents were tortured to death by authorities between January 1st and March 20th, 2008. The website provided a list and case details for each individual reported to have been killed.
Pretext for Repression
When bidding for the 2008 Games, the Vice-President of the Beijing Olympics committee, Liu Jingmin, promised the international community that awarding China the Games would "help develop human rights."
Yet internally, Chinese authorities expressed a very different understanding. According to a 2001 report by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, China's former Vice Premier declared that winning the Olympics was "justification for the country's crackdown on the Falun Gong."
By Agence France Presse | via (uncensored) Yahoo! News
April 04, 2008
Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier expressed "deep regret" Thursday over China's sentencing of Hu Jia and urged Beijing to release the human rights crusader.
"Canada learned with deep regret of Mr. Hu's sentence. He is well-known as a Buddhist activist and a human rights defender," Bernier, who was attending a NATO summit in the Romanian capital Bucharest, said in a statement.
"Canada continues to urge China to release Mr. Hu, as we have consistently done since his detention last December," he added.
Chinese authorities sentenced Hu, 34, to three years and six months in prison for "incitement to subvert state power" following a one-day trial last month.
Bernier said "freedom of expression and religion are universal human rights, and we note that China's constitution guarantees human rights for all its citizens."
The Canadian reaction joins widespread international condemnation of Beijing, which is facing accusations it has launched a campaign to silence dissent before it hosts the Olympic Games in August.
Hu, considered one of the country's most outspoken critics of China's communist regime, became the second Chinese dissident in less than two weeks to be jailed after using the Beijing Olympics to highlight human rights problems in China.
Yang Chunlin, 52, a former factory worker, was sentenced in March on similar subversion charges after he collected signatures for a petition entitled: "We want human rights, not the Olympics".
By Jim Yardley | The New York Times
April 04, 2008
A Chinese court sentenced an outspoken human rights advocate on Thursday to three and a half years in prison after ruling that his critical essays and comments about Communist Party rule amounted to inciting subversion, his lawyer said.
The conviction of the advocate, Hu Jia, 34, one of the most prominent human rights proponents in China, has quickly drawn outside criticism of China at a time when the government is already facing international concern over its handling of the Tibetan crisis.
Mr. Hu's case has been followed closely, especially in Europe, and critics say his conviction is part of a government crackdown to silence dissidents before Beijing hosts the Olympic Games in August.
In Bucharest, Romania, where President Bush was attending NATO meetings, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice criticized the sentence and said that the United States would continue to raise the issue of human rights with Chinese leaders in the months leading up to the Olympics.
"This is a long process," she said. "We do it respectfully with China, but there is no doubt that this is a decision that is deeply disturbing to us, and we're communicating that to the Chinese authorities."
Mr. Hu's wife, Zeng Jinyan, herself a well-known blogger and rights advocate, was distraught in a telephone interview on Thursday.
"I feel hopeless and helpless," said Ms. Zeng, who is under house arrest with the couple's infant daughter in their suburban Beijing apartment, though she was allowed to visit her husband on Thursday.
Asked why Mr. Hu was arrested and convicted, she said: "The fundamental reason is to silence him. He had been speaking up and all he said was plain truth. It makes them unhappy. But they can do this to him because they're unhappy?"
Earlier this year, Ms. Rice raised Mr. Hu's case during a meeting with China's foreign minister, Yang Jiechi. The European Union presidency has also criticized the subversion charge and called for Mr. Hu's release.
By BBC News
02 April 2008
According to Amnesty International, China is clamping down on dissent in a bid to portray a stable and harmonious image ahead of the Games in August.
It urged the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and world leaders to speak out against abuses, including China's handling of protests in Tibet.
US President George W Bush is facing calls to boycott the Games' opening.
"It would be clearly inappropriate for you to attend the Olympic Games in China, given the increasingly repressive nature of that country's government," a group of 15 US politicians wrote in a letter to Mr Bush on Tuesday.
Mr Bush has said he plans to attend the ceremony but Germany's Angela Merkel says she will not. French President Nicolas Sarkozy has not ruled out a boycott.
An IOC team is currently in Beijing to assess its readiness for the Games.
'Beyond reach'
In a report entitled China: The Olympics Countdown, the London-based group said the Olympics had failed to act as a catalyst for reform in China.
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS | The New York Times
02 April 2008
China has intensified its jamming of a Tibetan exile radio network's news broadcasts into Tibet during a crackdown on anti-government protests there, the network charged Wednesday.
The Chinese use radio stations inside Tibet to block the shortwave frequency used by the Voice of Tibet, said Oystein Alme, a Norwegian who runs the nonprofit foundation's business office in Oslo. The jamming signals contain music, drumming and noise.
Most of the Voice of Tibet's 13 staff members work at its main editorial office in Dharamsala, India, with Alme handling administration and funding in Oslo. The network started broadcasting in 1996, and has daily evening newscasts about Tibet in Tibetan and Mandarin Chinese. The station says its mission is ''to provide a channel for unbiased information and news to the Tibetans living under Chinese oppression in Tibet.''
Alme said the Chinese government started jamming its broadcasts almost as soon as they began but now is using two or three signals instead of one to make sure that the signal can't be heard.
''They have been stepping it up in connection with the demonstrations,'' Alme told The Associated Press. ''There has been enormous focus on journalists not getting free access to Tibet. The other side of the coin is that information from the outside is not getting into Tibet.''
The Chinese Foreign Ministry in Beijing had no immediate comment.
Tibetans have been protesting and rioting in Tibet and nearby provinces in the longest challenge to China's rule in the Himalayan region since 1989. The crackdown by Chinese authorities has focused international attention on the country's human-rights record in the run-up to the Beijing Games in August.
The jamming also affects those trying to listen in India, Nepal and Europe, Alme said.
By RADIO FREE ASIA
01 April 2008
Several hundred ethnic Uyghurs have staged protests in China's remote and restive Xinjiang region following the death in custody of a prominent Uyghur businessman and philanthropist.
Witnesses report protests at two locations in Khotan prefecture--in Khotan city March 23-24 and Qaraqash county March 23, RFA's Uyghur service reports. Several hundred protesters were taken into custody, numerous sources said, and security remains tight.
Numerous sources said the demonstrations followed the death in custody of a wealthy Uyghur jade trader and philanthropist, Mutallip Hajim, 38. Police returned his body to relatives March 3 after two months in custody, saying he had died in hospital of heart trouble. According to an authoritative source, police instructed the family to bury him immediately and inform no one of his death.
By BBC News
April 01, 2008
China must ensure open access to the internet during the Beijing Games, Olympic officials have warned.
Inspectors from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said China was obliged under its Games contract to provide journalists with web access.
The IOC's Kevan Gosper said there was concern that the web had been blocked during recent unrest in Tibet. He said this could not happen during the Games.
IOC inspectors are on a final visit to Beijing before the August Games begin.
Internet 'management'
Mr Gosper said blocking the internet during the Games would "reflect very poorly" on the host nation.
"There was some criticism that the Internet closed down during events relating to Tibet in previous weeks - but this is not Games time," he said.
"Our concern is that the press is able to operate as it has at previous Games during Games time."
Some 30,000 journalists are expected to be in Beijing to cover the Games.
China frequently blocks access to certain websites - often restricting access to foreign media sites.
But foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told the Associated Press that China's "management" of the internet followed the "general practice of the international community".
She declined to say if the internet would be unrestricted for journalists during the Olympics, AP noted.
By UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL
March 29, 2008
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has become the first world leader to announce she will not be at the Summer Olympics in Beijing, a German official confirmed.
Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in addition to confirming Merkel's decision, said he and Interior Minister Wolfgang Schauble will avoid the opening ceremony, The Guardian reported.
The crackdown on protests in Tibet and the Chinese government's claim that the Dalai Lama instigated rioting there have brought renewed attention to the lack of democracy in China, the newspaper said.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Thursday he would stay away from Beijing. Czech President Vaclav Klaus, who had previously said he would attend the games, followed suit almost immediately.
Foreign ministers from the 27 EU member states were expected to discuss the Olympics and Tibet in Slovakia Saturday, attempting to work out a common position.
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