Studies / Reports: October 2008 Archives
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 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 Tan Ee Lyn | REUTERS | via UNCENSORED Yahoo! News
October 10, 2008
Drug-resistant HIV strains are turning up in parts of China as the virus stretches beyond high-risk groups and gains a stronger foothold in the general population, a leading Chinese AIDS researcher said.
Chen Zhiwei, director of the AIDS Institute in Hong Kong, described the trends as "alarming" and warned that Chinese AIDS patients could get in trouble because there were very few HIV drugs available in China.
"All these drug-resistant mutations are in China now, they are emerging in Chinese patients. The major worry is whether the drug-resistant virus (strains) will spread," Chen said.
"We are studying whether that is happening, but that will be the case if you don't provide proper treatment," he told Reuters.
"If drug resistant virus (strains) spread in China, we don't have enough selection of (drugs) that are made available," Chen said, adding that researchers had urged China to import more varieties of HIV drugs.
China has only seven of the more than 20 different HIV drugs available, which means patients end up with limited options once they develop resistance to certain drugs.
Although HIV infection is incurable, cocktails of the drugs can control the virus. But drug adherence is bad in China's rural regions due to poor patient knowledge, inaccessible healthcare and a lack of health workers to explain to patients the importance of keeping to drug regimens.
Chen's warning comes after he and his colleagues published an article in Nature last week, detailing how HIV infections were rising sharply among women and gay and bisexual men in China.
There were some 700,000 HIV/AIDS cases in China as of October 2007, up 8 percent from 2006. Some 38 percent of cases were attributed to heterosexual contact, more than triple the 11 percent in 2005 -- when the bulk of infections were occurring among injecting drug users and through blood transmissions.
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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