News: November 2009 Archives

By REUTERS | via (UNCENSORED) Yahoo! News
November 27, 2009

People in China living with HIV and AIDS face widespread discrimination and stigma, with even medical workers sometimes refusing to touch them, according to a U.N. survey released on Friday.

China's Health Ministry and UNAIDS estimate that the country has between 97,000 and 112,000 people infected with AIDS.

But more than 40 percent of people surveyed in a new UNAIDS report said they had been discriminated against because of their HIV status. More than one-tenth said they had been refused medical care at least once.

Chinese AIDS activist Yu Xuan, talking at a news conference to unveil the report, recounted the story of a friend who was refused an urgent operation because of her HIV status, and who ended up dying as a result.

"I don't want people to have the kind of experiences I have had," said Yu, who also has AIDS.

China has long faced a problem in tackling a disease which officials once refused to acknowledge, and where for many people taboos surrounding sex remain strong, limiting public or even private discussion.

Deputy Chinese Health Minister Huang Jeifu said the government would work harder to address issues related to AIDS stigma and ignorance, but admitted it would be difficult.

"The biggest obstacle is that there is not enough education or publicity about AIDS. Society does not know enough about the disease, and people think you can get it just from touch, talking, shaking hands or eating together," Huang said. "This is a huge problem."

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By SHARON LaFRANIERE | The New York Times
November 24, 2009

A lengthy prison sentence for a rights activist shows the determination of Chinese officials to suppress any vestige of dissent related to shoddy construction and unnecessary deaths in last year's devastating earthquake in Sichuan Province, fellow activists said.

Huang Qi, 46, who helped parents press their grievances against the local government after their children died when their schools collapsed, was given a three-year prison term on Monday. He was convicted of illegal possession of state secrets, a common charge used to punish people who defy the authorities.

Mr. Huang's wife, Zeng Li, said in a telephone interview that her husband was found guilty of possession of "certain documents from a certain city." The documents and the city were not identified during a 10-minute court hearing in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, she said.

According to Ms. Zeng, the judge said that her husband must be severely punished because he had a prior conviction for inciting subversive activity. A prosecutor privately told her that her husband "has stepped on a lot of toes," she said.

She said her husband hoped to appeal the verdict. Mr. Huang is part of a loosely linked network of bereaved parents and activists who partly blame substandard shcool construction for the high toll from China's biggest natural disaster in decades.

By the government's estimate, about 90,000 people died in the earthquake, including 5,335 schoolchildren.

Ai Weiwei, a prominent artist in Beijing who has documented and publicized the deaths of schoolchildren, said Mr. Huang's punishment "is absolutely outrageous."

"They just want to put down any opposition," said the artist, who helped design Beijing's Olympic National Stadium, known as the Bird's Nest.

Although he has not faced as much pressure as Mr. Huang or other activists, Mr. Ai said he was also being harassed by government authorities. Last week, he said, government security officers visited his bank and told officials there that he had committed a serious crime, he said.

"I have asked myself many times, 'Should I do this?' " he said in a telephone interview. "The answer is clear. I have to act on my feelings."

Mr. Ai has tried to press the government to release a list of the dead children. Only in May, a year after the earthquake, did the authorities made public an estimate of how many died or were missing and presumed dead.

One 43-year-old mother lost her 14-year-old son when his high school in the city of Beichuan collapsed. "This is beyond my words," she said when asked about Mr. Huang's sentence. She gave her last name as Liu and requested that her first name not be used, for fear of repercussions.

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By SHARON LaFRANIERE | The New York Times
November 20, 2009

Like parents everywhere, mothers and fathers in Namibia, an impoverished southern African nation, worry about college costs and opportunities for their children. The Chinese government has stepped forward to help -- for a select and powerful few.

So far this year, the Beijing government has secretly awarded scholarships to study in China to the offspring of nine top officials, including to the daughter of Namibia's president, Hifikepunye Pohamba. Two young relatives of Namibia's former president and national patriarch, Sam Nujoma, also received grants.

The disclosure of the scholarships, first revealed by a feisty Namibian newspaper, has unleashed a wave of fury from the nation's civil society groups and youth organizations. In a country where five in six high school graduates do not go on to college, many find it unconscionable for well-paid government leaders to accept overseas university scholarships for their children.

"Only senior people in government knew about the scholarships," said Norman Tjombe, director of the nonprofit Legal Assistance Center. "No chance was given at all to the general public."

The controversy has reignited a simmering debate in Namibia over deals with the Chinese government, already under scrutiny by Namibian prosecutors. Inquiries there and in other developing countries in Africa and Asia have cast a fresh light on how China sometimes uses its treasure chest of foreign loans and aid to create elite alliances and ease the approval of no-bid contracts.

Even some within Namibia's governing Swapo party are asking whether China is trying to buy influence with their nation's political leadership to gain access to mineral resources or to win business for its well-connected companies.

"How is it that this favor just comes like manna from heaven?" said Elijan Ngurare, secretary general of Swapo's youth league, in a telephone interview. "Clearly there must be something that they are after."

To some international relations experts, the scholarship controversy illustrates a blind spot in China's aggressive strategy to cement diplomatic alliances, lock in natural resources and solicit trade and business on the African continent. In Namibia at least, Chinese government officials seem caught off guard by the public scrutiny exercised by a vibrant civil society.

The scholarship scandal was first revealed in Informante, a free tabloid in the Namibian capital, Windhoek, with a proud motto: "You conceal. We reveal." It has no counterpart in China, where even the most aggressive media outlets stop short of raising unfavorable questions about the dealings of top officials or their children.

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By ALEXA OLESEN, Associated Press Writer | via UNCENSORED Yahoo! News
November 12, 2009

Kidnapping people on their way to lodge complaints with China's central government has evolved into a lucrative cottage industry that mainland police refuse to acknowledge or crack down on, a human rights group said Thursday.

The report by New York-based Human Rights Watch on China's "black jails" is based mainly on interviews with 38 people who said they were nabbed by thugs while trying to bring grievances to the central government. They reported being held for days or months in makeshift detention centers, deprived of food and sleep, beaten and threatened. Police allegedly aided the captors or refused to intervene in several cases, it said.

China's Ministry of Public Security refused to look at the 53-page online report in English and requested a summary in Chinese. In response to a summary prepared by The Associated Press, a spokeswoman said the ministry was not responsible for any alleged violations and could not verify secret jails exist in China. She refused to give her name in line with ministry policy.

Black jails emerged in China about six years ago after police were barred from randomly detaining vagrants. The jails, usually makeshift lockups in hostels, apartment buildings, or abandoned factories, have been well-documented by human rights groups, lawyers, and the international media.

The HRW report sheds new light on the economics of the jails and why they evade crackdowns despite violating Chinese and international law.

It blames a civil service evaluation system that uses a point system to penalize officials if too many people from their jurisdiction complain to the central government and rewards those who are able to minimize grievances. Because bonuses and promotions are linked to evaluations, it's become economical for officials to pay people to intercept, detain and intimidate petitioners, it said.

The report cites an alleged internal government directive given to authorities in Shimen, a county in south China's Hunan province, in 2007 that says officials get two points if they bring petitioners back from Beijing or the provincial capital of Changsha, while those who fail to do so are to have half a point deducted.

Officials typically pay black jails between 150 yuan ($22) to 300 yuan ($44) per day to hold petitioners until they can be picked up and returned home, it said, and estimated that Beijing's black jails detain up to 10,000 people per year, though that number includes some people who are detained on multiple occasions.

Police in Beijing and other cities are aware of the jails but ignore them because they keep potentially troublesome petitioners away from cities, Human Rights Watch said. In some cases, police have also "directly assisted black jail operators," it said.

"It's completely illegal but the national authorities have done nothing to stop it so far," said Andrew Nathan, an expert on Chinese human rights issues who was not involved with the report.

"At the same time, though, this informal system cuts against the ability of the central authorities to learn about what's going wrong at the local level," he said. "In the long run it would be smarter for Beijing to let the petitioners exercise what are after all their legal rights."

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UPI - United Press International
November 05, 2009

Four months after riots in China's Uighur Autonomous Region, residents there are still cut off from the World Wide Web.

The government has not said when Internet access will be available again in the region and its principal city, Urumqi, China Daily, a government newspaper, reported.

The national government cut off access less than 24 hours after the July 5 riot, which left at least 197 people dead and hundreds jailed. Officials said separatist groups based outside China had used Facebook, Twitter and other sites to orchestrate the violence.

Local business owners, like Li Nan, who runs an online dried-fruit business, say the shutdown has been a major headache.

"To carry on my business, I had no choice but to set up a new office in Dunhuang, which is the closest town to Urumqi in Gansu province and has added to my costs. No Internet means no income for me," Li said. "Dunhuang has become a holy place for businessmen like me, although it takes 14 hours to get here from Urumqi by train."

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