China Digital Times

SECTION: Human Rights

• Guantánamo and China: A Shared Legal Dead Zone

  

  In the International Herald Tribune, Richard Bernstein writes about executed accused spy Wo Weihan, Guantanamo Bay, and China’s human rights record:

  China’s human rights record remains abysmal, but one price paid by the United States as it tries to bring pressure on Beijing is that some of the very things that China is accused of doing - preventing transparency, using national security to justify closed-door proceedings, bypassing the normal procedures in certain cases - are what the Bush administration has been doing at its detention center for alleged enemy combatants in Guantánamo Bay, and that certainly would seem to rob Washington of some of its moral authority.

  “Guantánamo was all about trying to create a place that would be outside the jurisdiction of both American and international law, a dead legal zone,” said Andrew Nathan, a political scientist at Columbia specializing both in China and in human rights law. “It was to deny the detainees any recourse to due process.”

  What makes Guantánamo similar to China, Nathan said, is that when it comes to matters deemed by the regime in Beijing to be of great importance, the entire country is a sort of dead legal zone, inside a closed system not subject to independent outside scrutiny by independent civilian courts.

  Happily, there isn’t much else in which China and the United States are comparable in this regard.

  » Read more
  • December 3, 2008 10:12 PM

• China Beat: Zhao Ziyang’s Legacy and 6/4 Memories

  

  China Beat has compiled several links to reports about the recent crackdown on Yanhuang Chunqiu for its coverage of Zhao Ziyang:

  As we prepare to mark the 30th anniversary of one turning point in the history of Chinese dissent (the appearance of Wei Jingsheng’s “Fifth Modernization” poster on December 5, 1978, the subject of a post we’ll run later this week), a debate on another major turning point (the 1989 protests and June 4th Massacre) may be re-emerging within China ahead of its 30th anniversary.

  One of the earliest reports (in English) that the Ministry of Culture had sought the resignation of the editor of the well-regarded magazine Yanhuang Chunqiu over its recent cover story praising purged leader Zhao Ziyang was on Time’s China Blog. There, Simon Elegant mentioned the incident, which has slowly gained momentum over the past few weeks.

  Read also “New push for Tiananmen reforms” from The Age.

  » Read more
  • December 1, 2008 10:08 PM

• China Urges Practical Steps To Help Developing Countries In Confronting Crisis

  

  From Xinhua:

  On Saturday, Chinese Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei called for efforts to support global development partnerships and for the global community to help developing nations with the global financial crisis. He was quoted as saying:

  The spreading international financial crisis, coupled with the complicated and grave international economic situation, is posing a challenge to efforts to implement the Millennium Development Goals…...Special attention should be given to efforts to minimize the impact of the financial crisis on developing countries, so as to maintain a good balance between stabilizing the financial market and helping vulnerable countries and communities.

  He also commented that developed nations should provide aid to developing countries and offer debt forgiveness and technology transfers.

  For more information on China’s involvement with developing nations, please see the following China Digital Times articles:

  China Helps Fight Cholera in Zimbabawe

  China Concerned Over Situation in DR Congo

  China has been heavily involved in the international response to the global financial crisis, as the video above discusses.

  » Read more
  • November 30, 2008 10:16 PM

• Chinese Police Rescue 18 Trafficked Vietnamese Women

  

  Chinese police have broken a human trafficking ring which kidnapped 18 Vietnamese women and sold them into marriages in the southeast of China.  From The China Post:

  The women had been working in China’s Guangxi region that borders Vietnam and were lured to Fujian with the promise of better jobs, the [Xinhua] report said. After they were kidnapped, the ring leader, surnamed Zhang, sold them to farmers in remote Yunxiao county for between 20,000-30,000 yuan (US$2,900-US$4,400), it said.

  The International Herald Tribune adds:

  China has said that it is making progress in fighting human trafficking, especially from Southeast Asian nations. It has resorted to harsh punishments to deter it, including the death penalty.

  The trafficking in women is driven by poverty and a skewed sex ratio in parts of the Chinese countryside, which make it difficult for many peasants to find wives.

  The shortage of women in rural parts of China is the product of the Chinese cultural preference for boys combined with the government’s one-child policy, as reported here on CDT. See also CDT’s previous posts on China’s gender imbalance and sex-selective abortions.

  Show on map

  » Read more
  • November 29, 2008 12:58 AM

• China Says Releases More Than 1,000 after Tibet Riots

  

  Shortly after postponing a summit with the European Union in protest over French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s plans to meet with the Dalai Lama, a Chinese official announced through state media that over 1,000 people detained in connection with the Lhasa riots in March have been released. From Reuters:

  China has released more than 1,000 people detained after rioting in Tibet in March, state media on Wednesday quoted a senior official as saying.

  “Most of the released rioters had turned themselves in right after the riot,” the official Xinhua news agency quoted Zhu Weiqun, a vice minister who handles relations with ethnic minorities and religious groups, as saying.

  [...]Zhu, who said there was no “suppression” in Tibet, added that the suspects “had enjoyed all legitimate rights based on Chinese law”, Xinhua paraphrased him as saying.

  “Local courts sent interpreters to help all rioters in the trial and ethnic background and religious beliefs were not considered when handing down sentences,” Zhu said.

  Read more about the Lhasa riots here on CDT.

  » Read more
  • November 27, 2008 3:45 PM

• EU Official Stopped From Visiting Chinese Activist

  

  From AP:

  Security guards blocked a member of the European Parliament on Tuesday from visiting an activist whose jailed husband recently won the body’s top human rights prize.

  Helga Trupel, who was visiting Beijing as a member of an official delegation, attempted to visit to Zeng Jinyan, who has used her blog to bring attention to rights abuses. In 2007, Zeng was named by Time magazine as one of the world’s 100 most influential people.

  But about a half-dozen security guards blocked Trupel from entering the “Freedom City” complex where Zeng lives with her infant daughter, as men who appeared to be plainclothes agents looked on and filmed with video cameras. Trupel had been trying to deliver a stuffed toy to the child.

  » Read more
  • November 26, 2008 7:56 PM

• Political Essayist Gets Three Years in Prison For Three Articles Posted Online

  
  

  PEN holds pictures of journalists jailed in China during the Olympics, courtesy of PEN.org

  In relation to a previous article on CDT, Chen Daojun (陈道军), the journalist/activist sentenced to three years in prison for three articles posted online, follows a growing trend of bloggers and other citizens being arrested for internet posts. Reporters Without Borders reports and calls for the release of Chen Daojun:

  “Chen Daojun is guilty only of expressing his views on Chinese politics,” Reporters Without Borders said. “He is the second cyber-dissident to be convicted this year by a Chengdu court, following Huang Qi, who was arrested on 10 June because of his online articles criticising the management of humanitarian aid after the 12 May earthquake in Sichuan. By jailing Internet users in this fashion, the authorities have once again shown they are unable to handle criticism.”

  “This is one of the most important cases in recent years,” Zhang Yu of the Independent Chinese PEN Centre told Reporters Without Borders. “No one has been given such a severe sentence for just a handful of articles since 2006, when Li Changqing got three years for writing about the 2004 dengue epidemic in Fuzhou [the capital of the southeastern province of Fujian].”

  Zhang added that only one lawyer in the Chengdu region, Xiang Yang, was notified that the trial was going to take place. He was told on 17 November. The next day, the police summoned him and asked him to explain why he was defending Chen, whose own lawyer, Zhu Jiuhu, had not been told.

  A Tibetan activist, Walza Norzin Wangmo, was also convicted… She got a five-year prison sentence for disseminating information about the current situation in Tibet by telephone and Internet.

  The articles in Chinese can be found on the Reporters Without Borders website. Blogging for China has a sample of translation on one of Chen Daojun’s essays in reaction to the Lhasa riots and subsequent Chinese nationalism in March:

  The second essay brought up in court follows up on the strong backlash from Chinese people inside China and around the world against the disgraceful coverage of the March incident across much of the western media. The title is “反西方华人的背景” (Backgrounds of the Anti-West Chinese) and it includes sweeping charges against all Chinese who do not think like him
  [On anti-west Chinese in China]: Years of brain washing by the CCP seriously destroyed the spirit and soul of the Chinese. It produced generations of ignorant and stupid populace that knows nothing about right and wrong, self esteem, human rights, and value of life. These ignorant and stupid people are the most mind-numb, selfish, cowardly, principle-less and calculating kind. … They desperately need something to show their poor value and whatever little that is left of their courage. They do not dare to take on the dictatorship because their cowardliness and selfishness, but found a chance when the west is boycotting Olympics and protesting crackdowns in Tibet. …

  [On anti-west Chinese living overseas]: They are a group to be suspected. If they love China and CCP, why do they go through all the trouble to move overseas? Besides those who immigrated before CCP took over the power, all overseas Chinese fall under the following types: 1) a very rare few who were seeking freedom. 2) organized political immigrants by CCP that are tasked to spy and stir up trouble. 3) relatives of the Chinese officials who took all the blood money stolen from the people to safe guard their fortune in a free west. … Another fraction of them consists all those Chinese students attending school overseas. In today’s China, where are they from? They are either children of corrupt officials or cheating businessmen. …

  Read more from Chinese journalists and bloggers, like Woeser’s criticisms on the March riots on CDT.

  Show on map

  » Read more
  • November 26, 2008 2:50 AM

• Xu Zhiyong: Destined To Fight For Social Justice

  

  It is very unusual for a human rights activist to be profiled by official media in China. The Economic Observer recently published a profile of Xu Zhiyong, a legal scholar and activist who relentlessly seeks social justice. Excerpts translated by CDT’s Linjun Fan.

  “We must get rid of the traditional idea that politics merely means revolution and counterrevolution. What we seek is not destruction, but construction. We do not participate in politics to gain power, but to check power. What we pursue is not material wealth, nor the desire to control others. We strive to realize the value of life for ourselves, and help to promote public welfare in the meantime. ”

  This paragraph is quoted from an idealistic article titled Politics Should Be Desirable written by Xu Zhiyong last year.

  Thirty-five-year-old Xu is a legal scholar and activist. He is knowledgeable and enthusiastic, persistent and active. Many young people admire him as a role model, and intellectuals have great expectations for him. He seems to be born with compassion for those in poverty and misery…

  Xu has made a long list of remarkable achievements in fighting for social justice and making changes in politics. He wrote a public letter to the National People’s Congress in the aftermath of the Sun Zhigang Incident; he volunteered to be the defense lawyer for Sun Dawu; he was elected twice as a People’s Representative at Haidian District of Beijing; he conducted research on petitioners in Beijing, etc.

  The Open Constitution Initiative of which Xu is a member is preparing to file a collective lawsuit for victims of the recent milk power poisoning incident, seeking compensation for those who could not afford to hire a lawyer.

  Sitting across the table from me, Xu is quiet and self-contained. He speaks slowly, word by word, carefully expressing his opinions with long pauses. He said it was when he was 14 years old that he set a mission for his life. He was an introverted and ambitious middle school student at that time, harboring a remote dream. He estimated that it would take 20 years for him to realize the dream. Now the dream still remains far away from him after 20 years have passed. But his mission remains unchanged:

  “I strive to be a worthy Chinese citizen, a member of the group of people who promote the progress of the nation. I want to make people believe in ideals and justice, and help them see the hope of change. I have taken part in politics in pursuit of a better and more civilized nation. Through my lifelong deeds of fighting for social justice, I am determined to prove to the citizens across the country that politics should be desirable, that politics should be a cause for public welfare.”

  Xu has visited “black jails” in Beijing four times since the beginning of the year. The so-called black jails are places used by local officials to detain petitioners.

  Xu received a text message on Oct. 12. “This is Ma Xirong from Henan province. I am now detained at the black prison at the backyard of the Youth Hotel at Hufang Road. Can you come to rescue me and the two dozen people detained here? Help!” Xu and several reporters arrived at the hotel the next afternoon.

  Ma came to a window trying to get out to meet Xu, but a guard stopped her. So she talked to Xu on the other side of the window. Ma told Xu that she was stopped by police when she was walking on Wangfujing Street. The police detained her after finding out that she carried a petition letter with her. She was then confined in the hotel yard. As they talked, more and more detainees gathered at the window. The guard pushed Ma back inside.

  Shortly afterward, a minibus suddenly came. Three people jumped down from it, and violently attacked the petitioners. Xu wanted to fight back when he saw his companions being slapped, punched and kicked. “However, I must control myself. I must thoroughly calm down. We didn’t come for a fight. We came to suffer, ” he wrote on his blog that evening.

  “Almost at the same time, my neck, chest and face were punched. The bare-armed guard fiercely kicked me on my knees from behind, trying to knock me down. But I stood there calmly and said to him, ‘I won’t take issue with you.’ He kept cursing me. I just looked at him with sympathy. ”

  They managed to take Ma out of the detention place that afternoon. But she had to go back to her hometown with the officials from her local province. She took out her petition document to give it to Xu. Her son died in a car accident when he was a college student at a well-known university. She disagreed with a court decision on the accident, and has been petitioning since then.

  “She suddenly knelt down before us, and thanked us for our help… I helped her stand up. Actually, I wanted to say to her, ‘Although we have been beaten, we didn’t lose anything. It’s our honor to share some of your misery.’”

  According to Xu’s investigation, there are at least four places in Beijing that local officials from Henan province are using to detain petitioners. The local governments pay a handsome amount of money to rent the places and to hire people to guard the petitioners.

  Xu said that the illegal prisons didn’t show up until after 2003. Petitioners used to be taken into homeless transfer centers and then sent back to their home provinces. After the government banned homeless transfer centers in 2003, local officials created illegal prisons as an alternative place to temporarily detain petitioners.

  “Illegal prisons are much more horrible than illegal brick kilns. The practice must be stopped. I strive to bring sunshine there, even if it’s just a slim ray of light, ” Xu said.

  Xu became well-known to the public in 2003, when three legal PhDs of Beijing University, Xu and his classmates Yu Jiang and Teng Biao, sent a joint letter to the National People’s Congress, urging it to review the Act on Housing and Transferring Urban Homeless. The Congress didn’t conduct the review as requested, but the act was rescinded shortly after the letter was submitted. The incident was regarded as a landmark step forward in China’s legal system.

  Xu had studied the law on housing and transferring homeless people a few years before the Sun Zhigang incident. He first started to learn about the army of petitioners when he saw them waiting in front of the reception office of China Central Television in 1997. From talking to them, Xu got to know that many of the petitioners had been forcibly taken into custody and repatriation centers and then sent back to their home provinces.

  He spent a lot of time doing research on the unjust law in 2002 and believed that it would be terminated, during his years of pursuing a Ph.D. in Beijing University. He worked part-time for the rural edition of China Reform magazine, and received petitioners and listened to their grievances every weekend.

  In the same year Xu ran for the position of People’s Representative at Haidian District of Beijing. In an article titled Why I am Running for People’s Representative he wrote, ” Let us cherish the democratic rights the law has given us, and let us treat our laws sincerely. ” .. He was elected by an overwhelming majority at the end of year, and reelected four years later.

  Xu was born in 1973 in a small village by the Yellow River, located in Minquan County, Henan province. Minquan means Civil Rights. Xu is proud of his birthplace. He believes that it’s not a coincidence he was born at a place called Civil Rights County. He believes that he came to the world with a mission. “I am destined to fight for civil rights all my life,” he said.

  Xu was a quiet young man in his middle school years. He wrote about his ambitions in his diary. “Dedicate myself to public service, advocate for social reform, change the tradition of a nation, and help to build an ideal society.” He wished to study journalism in college and expose wrongdoings. However, his wish was not fulfilled and he was accidentally enrolled by the department of law.

  “I get angry whenever I see something unjust. I would try my best to help the disadvantaged, ” he said. He has been swindled a number of times by people who pretended to beggars. He has become more cautious. But he still tries to help beggars as much as he can, and tells them seriously that, “You should not cheat on me” …

  Xu went alone to a village in Liaoning Province to provide legal assistance to farmers there in 2001. The village had received a considerable amount of compensation money after its land was used to build a highway. However, corrupt local officials had squandered all the money themselves without giving any to the farmers. When Xu gathered villagers to discuss how to solve the problem, ten police vehicles drove into the village. A person got out, pointed his fingers at Xu and inquired, “Who sent you here?”

  Xu was pushed into a police car after fierce arguing. Many villagers lay on the ground in front of the car to block it from moving. The conflict could trigger fatal violence. Xu got out of the car, persuaded the villagers to stop the blocking, and returned to the police car. He was then taken to the local police department. Six hours later, Xu was released and promised to leave Liaoning Province, on the condition that he could talk to the villagers before he left. The villagers gathered at a house and waited for Xu. Some seniors burst into tears when they saw Xu again.

  “I said a few simple sentences to them. I said I would continue to help them. And then I left. I was sad. I contacted a few reporters, but failed to get them to report on the case. The farmer who led the protest in the village was put in prison for a year. That was the biggest setback I’ve encountered, ” he said.

  Although Xu is regarded as a rebel by conservatives, he has not stopped trying to enter the political establishment. Xu submitted a unique application letter to join the CCP in 2002. “Joining the party gives me a better chance to work for the government and to serve the public, that’s why I am considering to become a party member, ” he wrote in the letter.

  Xu started to write a book Report on Petitioning in China in 2005. Working together with several friends, he has recently completed the 200,000-word book, which has not yet been published. To conduct in-depth research on the issue, he lived in a neighborhood where petitioners gather on the southern outskirts of Beijing for two months. He shared a room with ten or eight people or stayed in a tiny room in a crowded courtyard.

  A number of people are sent by local governments to block petitioners from talking to officials of the central government. They gather at the hutong where the National Petition Bureau is located. “They disturb everyone. They would even drag a girl if she happens to walk by. They act like rascals. They’ve gone crazy,” Xu said.

  The hutong was full of people the first time Xu went there. He was stopped shortly after entering the lane. “Someone dragged my arm and asked me where I came from. I said I was from Henan province. My words caused a commotion. Several people pulled me over and asked me which part of Henan I was from. I answered Kaifeng. The people who were sent by Kaifeng government swiftly came to me and beat me. ‘Have you petitioned to the local government of Kaifeng?’ they asked. I answered I that I hadn’t. ‘Then you’ve violated the law. You should have gone to the local government first,’ they said while kicking and punching me. My clothes was soon marked with shoe prints.” Xu was actually wearing a suit that day and thought that he could not have been mistaken as a petitioner.

  He saw an old lady with white hair another time he was visiting the hutong. “I was a few meters away from her. I saw her being cornered. Someone punched her to the ground, and then several people encircled her and kicked her. I was astonished. I hit someone on the head. They hit back and pushed me down to the ground. They then ran away. I got up and chased after them, ” Xu said.

  Xu exploded with rage that day. “I cursed these people. I said that you guys are animals. The lady is older than your mothers. Why the hell do you beat her? ” These people were dumbfounded at my words. No one said anything back to me.

  After this article was available online, some readers also posted interesting comments:

  —Admirable. Is it worthwhile to do all this for this country?
  —Of course. I can’t do it myself. That’s why I admire him even more. The more people like Xu we have, the better chances we have to make a change in the political system.
  —Does he know that what he will be faced with? He won’t have money. He won’t have a private life. If even a woman is willing to follow him, they will have to wander around and could never settle down. He won’t have children. And his parents will live in constant fear because of him. Of course he knows all about this. But most importantly, I believe what he is doing is completely useless. He would be murdered on the street someday.
  —I think his actions will gradually make a difference. At least those unscrupulous ones know that there are people who oppose them.

  » Read more
  • November 26, 2008 12:02 AM

• China Irritated with ‘Slanderous’ U.N. Report on Rights

  

  Andrew Jacobs reports in the New York Times:

  The Chinese government reacted angrily on Monday to what it called a slanderous United Nations report that alleges systemic torture of political and criminal detainees. The government said the authors were biased, untruthful and driven by a political agenda.

  The report, issued Friday by the United Nations Committee Against Torture, documented what the authors described as widespread abuse in the Chinese legal system, one that often gains convictions through forced confessions.

  The report recounts China’s use of “secret prisons” and the widespread harassment of lawyers who take on rights cases, and it criticizes the government’s extralegal system of punishment, known as re-education through labor, which hands down prison terms to dissidents without judicial review.

  » Read more
  • November 24, 2008 9:05 PM

• China Protests Against ‘Prejudiced’ U.N. Torture Report

  

  From Reuters:

  A United Nations panel on torture that criticised China’s record had prejudiced and politicised members, the foreign ministry said late on Saturday.

  In recommendations following its review of China earlier this month, the U.N. Committee Against Torture told China to improve monitoring of abuse in prisons and hospitals and called for an inquiry into the use of force on Tibetan protests.

  It said Beijing should fully investigate all deaths in state custody and provide more information about how it treats detainees.

  “Some individual members of the panel, with prejudice against China and in defiance of the facts, ignored the abundant materials provided by the Chinese government in favour of unconfirmed and even fabricated evidence to deliberately politicize the issue,” spokesman Qin Gang said in remarks posted on the ministry’s website.

  Read also UN Committee Says China “Should Take Immediate Steps to Prevent Acts of Torture” from Human Rights in China.

  » Read more
  • November 23, 2008 12:30 AM

• ‘Black Jail’ Plea from Hospital

  

  From RFA:

  A man who tried to lodge a complaint against official corruption in his hometown in the central Chinese province of Hubei was detained in one of a growing number of “black jails” or unofficial detention centers and severely beaten, he said from his hospital bed.

  Guo Dajing, of Yunxi county, was detained and dragged back to his hometown by police, local officials, and hired thugs while he was in Beijing to file a complaint in September. He was taken to the detention center where he was beaten up, and then later transferred to a local hospital.

  “Right now I have been taken once more to the hospital by them. There were more than a dozen people guarding me before. Now there are two,” he said from Yunxi County Hospital.

  » Read more
  • November 22, 2008 2:39 AM

• Chinese Journalist Sentenced To 3 Years

  

  From AP:

  A Chinese writer and journalist who was arrested after protesting against a power plant in southwest China was sentenced Friday to three years in prison on charges of subverting state power, his lawyer said.

  Chen Daojun was sentenced in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, in a trial lasting a little more than 30 minutes, said Beijing-based lawyer Zhu Jiufu.

  Three of Chen’s articles were presented in court as evidence that he attacked the Communist Party, Zhu said.

  “In my opinion, he was only criticizing the party, and never said he would subvert it,” Zhu said.

  » Read more
  • November 21, 2008 5:39 AM

• House Of Leading Chinese Rights Activist Demolished

  

  From AFP:

  Beijing authorities destroyed the home of leading rights activist Ni Yulan on Friday as her distraught husband pleaded with the government to release her from jail.

  Up to 200 police surrounded the home of the activist lawyer Ni and her husband Dong Jiqin as a bulldozer demolished the rest of the central Beijing courtyard home that Dong’s parents purchased in 1951.

  Authorities had already razed much of it in April.

  “The home is not so important, what is important is that Ni Yulan should be released from jail,” a visibly shaken and tearful Dong told AFP as he watched the razing of the home where he was born.

  » Read more
  • November 21, 2008 5:30 AM

• Netizen Comments and Opinions on the Longnan Riots

  

  Oiwan Lam at GlobalVoices has posted translations of the results of a search of Chinese cyberspace for information on the Longnan riots. The violent clash between protesters and police was reportedly triggered by municipal government plans to demolish and relocate Longnan’s city center.  Many if not all of these translated posts have vanished from the Web.  Excerpts below:

  Land acquisition and city relocation

  [...]“2008年11月17 日上午9时30分开始，甘肃省陇南市武都区东江镇30多名拆迁户再次集体到陇南市委上访，要求对陇南市行政中心搬迁后他们面临的住房、土地和今后的生活等 问题做出答复。11月17日下午，大批群众和居民在陇南市委门前集体上访，陇南市委和相关部门的干部及时进行了接访，但未与上访人员意见达成一致。当晚， 聚集和围观群众陆续增加，围堵至凌晨，未见到主要领导。由于未知原因，人群冲入市委院内，打碎玻璃，砸毁汽车，烧毁部分办公室，引发了这次次的严重冲突。”

  At 9:30am of Nov 17, more than 30 petitioners from Dongjiang town, Wudu district, Lungnan City paid the petition visit to the city committee. Because of the land acquisition, people are homeless and landless, now that the city is to relocated to another district, they demand the city committee to explain the situation and whether the government have any relief plan for them. In the afternoon, more people gathered in front of the city committee. Although the city officials had arranged a meeting with the petitioners, there was no consensus. More and more people gathered outside the city committee in the evening until midnight expecting to see city leader. For some unknown reason, some people rushed into the courtyard of city committee, broke the windows and vehicles and set fire on part of the office. Such action leaded to this serious confrontation.
  

  Police’s trap

  A secondary school youth from Wudu gave more background on this confrontation in the comment section:

  “原因是搬迁之事政府在很早以前就出来辟谣，告诉群众不要相信谣言，况且还为此逮捕了６名所谓的传谣者．更重要的是自从王义 来武都做市委书记以后，拆了很多的民房，尤其是武都东江镇，毫不夸张的说一个很大的镇子被移为平地，数万人没了自己的家，王义给群众的答案是要把东江建成 陇南新城，群众没有说什么他们相信政府，东江镇的居民全部住进了临时安置房，没有人抱怨，因为他们相信党会让他们过的更好！可是王义要一走了之，要那么多 人永远无家可归，大家说人们能不愤怒吗？．５１２武都人民都没有被吓倒，１１月１７日武都人真的愤怒了，他们自发聚集在市委抗议，武都人是很文明的，开始 只喊喊口号＂反对搬迁＂没人那么过激，然而在１７日夜群众愤怒了．在１７日夜有几个维持执安的成县武警把几个群众抓到市委大楼拳打脚踢，致使重伤，群众忍 无可忍冲进大楼只是想救出群众，抓出打人者，可是没等人走近又是一阵警棒石块，这才越闹越大．到目前已有上百人被捕，很多人受了伤，生命垂危，更可气的 是，调来的军车上竟写着＂反恐精英＂在抗震救灾在中人民解放军树立的深厚情谊被王义在一夜之间瓦解了！”

  The government had been preaching to the people not to believe in rumor and they had arrested 6 so-called rumor makers. Since Wang Yi became the secretary of city committee, a lot of residential buildings had been demolished, especially in Wudu Dongjiang town. It is not exaggerating to say that the whole town had been demolished and thousands of people lost their home. Wang Yi explained to the people that Dongjiang would become Lungnan new city center. People believed the government and willingly moved into temporary housing. No one complained because they believed in the party’s good will to improve their life. However, now that Wang Yi decided to move away and left behind so many homeless people. How can they not be angry? During the 5.12 earthquake, people wasn’t panicking. In Nov 17, people were really angry, they protested in front of the city committee spontaneously. People in Wudu are very civilized, at first they just shout slogan: “no relocation”. However, later at night, some police from Cheng County pushed a number of protesters into the city committee building and beat them hard. People couldn’t stand anymore, they rushed in to rescue their fellow and tried to get hold of the attackers. However, the police insiders received them with rods and stones. Then the situation became out of control. More than a hundred people had been arrested now, many were injured, some are fatal. It is more agitating that the military vehicles moving in carry a slogan “counter terrorist force”. The image of earthquake rescuing team has vanished over night.
  

  Information blocked

  Another comment urges people to help spreading the news:

  “到11月18日，至少已经有数十名无辜群众遭暴打致死。消息都封锁了，很多更真实的照片都发不出来。而在这个帖子里，竟然 是政府的御用笔杆在那里乱打官腔，群众的感情他们根本就是在当做垃圾,而百姓的言论遭到大量的封锁，只能发布在少数冷门论坛里，根本无法引起外界重视。我 们死了很多同胞，至少我们不希望他们死的太冤，在死后还要被冠以“暴民”的帽子。市委书记拆完了，招商了，引资了，要调离拍屁股走人了，很难不能让人相信 他背后的动作。甘肃省委不明真相，封锁消息，这种大事连四百公里外的省会兰州都没有多少人知道！天理何在？我们的意见，我们的冤屈难道就这样被强权和官僚 们压制！？无奈之下，只能希望大家口口相传，让更多的人知道真相。希望能够引起关注。就在刚才，大街上防暴警察还在向群众释放催泪瓦斯，官逼民反，民不得 不反。天理何在，希望大家了解真相，让更多的人都了解真相，大家都转帮忙传一下。谢谢。”

  In Nov 18, tens of protesters had been beaten to death. Information had been blocked and photos could not be released. However, this post (translator note: from another forum) has adopted the official stand - they disregarded people’s emotion and much of their opinions had been blocked. Their voices could only appear in a small number of forum with very few visitors. They couldn’t attract public attention. We have lost a number of fellows and we hope that their deaths deserve some respect, not to be called as “rioters”. The secretary of the city committee had done with the demolition, had done with contracting out project and business, had done with attracting capital, now he is ready to go and leave people behind. He have lost his credibility. The Gansu province committee doesn’t know the truth and blocks the information. Such big incident was not even reported in Lanzhou. Where is our justice? Should our opinion and our sufferings be repressed by the bureaucrats like that? We can only depends on people to pass on the information and raise concern. Just now, the riot police are still firing tear gas to the people. The people have to resist. I wish you will understand the truth and let it known to others. Please pass on the information, thank you.

  The Chinese portions of these quotes were originally aggregated in a post by Chinese blogger Beifeng.  Beifeng’s post appears to have been deleted.  The link which Lam provides to Beifeng’s blog, hosted on Bullog.cn, leads to an error page:

  However, Beifeng’s original Chinese post has been reproduced on two other BBS forums.

  See CDT’s previous post on the Longnan riots.

  Show on map

  » Read more
  • November 20, 2008 12:14 AM

• In Beijing, Author Treads Fine Line As She Tells Tibet’s Story

  

  From Christian Science Monitor:

  Woeser’s fans have plenty of reasons to worry that she’ll be thrown in jail soon.

  The famed Tibetan writer has sued the Chinese government. She’s investigating the March uprising in Tibet. She articulates the repression that many Tibetans feel, flouting the official line that they like Chinese rule – all from a modest, high-rise apartment in Beijing.

  The government here bans her work. But from Tennessee to Tibet, her fans hang on every unauthorized poem, essay, and blog. To them, she risks her life to tell the “real” Tibetan story – a narrative that unites the Tibetan community even as it diverges over politics, a hot topic this week at a rare summit in Dharamsala, India, called by the Dalai Lama.

  “She brings a unique combination of experience and ability at the moment, [and] she’s willing to stand up,” says Elliot Sperling, a Tibet expert at Indiana University in Bloomington. Her writings “contribute significantly to the general perception of what’s going on in Tibet.”

  » Read more
  • November 19, 2008 4:08 AM