Guangdong Propaganda Department: On the morning of May 17, a Huanan Agricultural University PhD student hanged himself and passed away. The media must not investigate, report, or comment on the incident. If necessary, cover the story in strict accordance with police wire copy. (May 18, 2013)

广东省委宣传部：5月17日早上华南农业大学一博士生上吊自杀身亡，各媒体不采访报道评论，必要时严格按警方通稿刊播。

Guangdong Propaganda Department: Regarding the planned Binhai power plant in Shenzhen and related issues; and the demolition and relocation of a public cemetery for victims of the Anti-Japanese War in Guangzhou, and related issues; the media must not report or comment. (May 18, 2013)

广东省委宣传部：对深圳滨海电厂规划及相关问题、广州拆迁抗日公墓相关话题，各媒体不报道不评论。

CDT has collected the selections we translate here from a variety of sources and has checked them against official Chinese media reports to confirm their implementation.

Since directives are sometimes communicated orally to journalists and editors, who then leak them online, the wording published here may not be exact. The original publication date on CDT Chinese is noted after the directives; the date given may indicate when the directive was leaked, rather than when it was issued. CDT does its utmost to verify dates and wording, but also takes precautions to protect the source.

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: censorship, Directives from the Ministry of Truth, forced demolitions, Guangdong, media censorship, Ministry of Truth, propaganda, suicide, World War II
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Central Propaganda Department: Without exception, do not report or comment on [information] about “Occupy Central” in Hong Kong that has not yet been unified and planned. Do not quote related information from overseas media or websites. Please strictly comply. (May 14, 2013)

中宣部：对香港“占领中环”行动一事未统一安排一律不报道、不评论，不转引境外媒体及网上相关消息。请严格遵照执行。

Protesters plan to “occupy” Central, the busy downtown of Hong Kong, in July 2014 if Hong Kong citizens do not have universal suffrage by that point. The International Herald Tribune covered Occupy Central in April, while the South China Morning Post has a page dedicated to the topic.

Guangdong Propaganda Department: On the evening of May 9, employee Wu Taihui jumped from the administrative offices of the Zhongyi Industrial Park in Dongguan. Except for [information] issued by authoritive departments, the media are to stop reporting and commenting on this incident. (May 15, 2013)

广东省委宣传部：5月9日晚东莞中意工业园行政办公楼发生的员工吴太辉坠楼事件，除权威部门发布外，各媒体不再报道，评论。

Wu, who had just been fired, was at the factory to settle his wages, according to his widow [zh].

Central Propaganda Department: The media are not to sensationalize, exaggerate, or comment on the incident in Wanning, Hainan Province in which an elementary school put female students in a hotel room overnight. You may report in an orderly manner according to information issued by authoritative departments. (May 15, 2013)

中宣部：关于海南万宁小学带女学生开房过夜一事，各媒体不炒作渲染、不评论。可依据权威部门发布的信息有序报道。

Four girls were brought to a hotel room in Wanning and sexually assaulted by their school headmaster. A government official brought another two girls to a hotel in nearby Haikou. Doctors who examined the girls reported they are still virgins, but they were bruised and appear “groggy” in surveillance footage.

CDT has collected the selections we translate here from a variety of sources and has checked them against official Chinese media reports to confirm their implementation.

Since directives are sometimes communicated orally to journalists and editors, who then leak them online, the wording published here may not be exact. The original publication date on CDT Chinese is noted after the directives; the date given may indicate when the directive was leaked, rather than when it was issued. CDT does its utmost to verify dates and wording, but also takes precautions to protect the source.

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: censorship, children's rights, Directives from the Ministry of Truth, dongguan, Guangdong, Hainan, hong kong elections, Ministry of Truth, Occupy Central, occupy movement, propaganda, sexual violence, suicide
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

“Peace” (@鸟人与鱼)

The death of 22-year-old Yuan Liya, who fell from the Jingwen shopping center on May 3, has been deemed a suicide by the Beijing police. In disbelief, hundreds protested last week calling for the surveillance footage of Yuan’s final moments to be released. But even that has not quieted doubts that Yuan took her own life. Prior to the release of the footage, a 28-year-old woman was arrested for spreading a rumor that Yuan was gang-raped by security guards, which spread on Weibo. The official site of Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau announced that it had been proved that the girl from Anhui had “committed suicide” and “the family offers no disagreement.”

In response to the official verdict, seasoned blogger @琢磨先生 started a “non-suicide vow” campaign on Weibo:

@琢磨先生: [Non-Suicide Vow] I am Mr. Zhuomo. I will never commit suicide. If I should die in any type of accident, it is homicide, and the police should investigate thoroughly. Please repost this and make your own vow, lest you are “suicided.”

【不会自杀承诺保证书】我是琢磨先生，我绝对不会自杀。将来如果我出任何意外，都是他杀，请警方务必彻查。转发本微博并做出你的承诺，以防“被自杀”。

[original post]

As of May 13 at 5:15 p.m. EST, this weibo has been reposted 33,103 times and received 11,653 comments. There is also a Non-Suicide Vow Weibo discussion page.

Through these vows, netizens are trying to prevent being “suicided”–having their murder written off as suicide by the authorities.

This is not the first time such pledges have appeared. Activist Li Wangyang was found hanging in his hospital room last year. 20 years in jail took a severe toll on Li’s health, but those close to him doubted the official ruling of his death as a suicide. After Li’s death, activists including the likes of Hu Jia and Wang Lihong declared that they would never commit suicide, no matter what situation they found themselves in.

CDT Chinese has collected a number of vows:

@鸟人与鱼: I am Birdman-and-fish (鸟人与鱼). I will never commit suicide. If I should die in any type of accident, it is homicide, and the police should investigate thoroughly. Please repost this and make your own vow, lest you are “suicided.” @琢磨先生

【不会自杀承诺保证书】我是鸟人与鱼，我绝对不会自杀。将来如果我出任何意外，都是他杀，请警方务必彻查。转发本微博并做出你的承诺，以防“被自杀”。@琢磨先生

@天使向莉: I am Xiangli. I promise that I will never commit suicide. I am outgoing and positive. My regular activities, such as buying soy sauce, taking cold showers, and doing sit-ups, would not cause my death. I have signed a power of attorney (POA) with Attorney Liang Xiaojun (@梁小军律师) and Attorney Chen Jiangang (@律师陈建刚). From the date of signing the POA, no one, including myself, my family, and other relevant and non-relevant persons, has the right to terminate the agreement.

我是向莉，我在此承诺，我绝不会自杀。本人性格开朗，积极向上，打酱油凉水澡仰卧起坐等常规项目均不至于致命。本人已签写委托函至@梁小军律师 @律师陈建刚 处，自函签订之日起，本人及家人及相关、无关人等，均无权更换、解聘律师。

@折腾画笔: #nonsuicidevow Though I occasionally feel depressed, I promise I will never cut off my future by committing suicide. I have no tangled romances, and no tendency towards world-weariness. I am striving to learn traditional arts from all across China. Hang gliding, parachuting, riding a hot air balloon, deep-sea diving, and traversing Siberia are all on my list. I also want to circumnavigate the globe. I absolutely love life.

#不自杀承诺# 本人虽偶有抑郁，但承诺绝不自断前程。无情感纠葛，无厌世倾向，现正积极努力在祖国各地学习传统文化遗产技艺。滑翔翼、降落伞、热气球、深海潜水、穿越西伯利亚等，均被排上行程。有生之年还想环行世界，绝对爱惜生命。

@周泽律师: I just reposted the following two blogs. @无敌破壊王 promises he will never commit suicide and says, “If I should die in any type of ‘accident,’ it is homicide, and the police should investigate thoroughly;” @天使向莉 promises she would “never commit suicide,” and has signed a POA. What do they mean? We need to seriously discuss this topic: If they really did do that [commit suicide], would these vows and POAs have effect?

【不自杀承诺】刚转发两条的微博中，@无敌破壊王 承诺不会自杀，表示“将来如果我出任何意外，都是他杀，请警方务必彻查”；@天使向莉 也承诺“绝不会自杀”，还向律师出具了委托书。这到底怎么回事呢？严肃探讨：如果他们真那个了，这承诺及委托有效吗？

@徐子林不加V: I am Xu Zilin. I will never commit suicide. If I die in some unexpected way some day, it is homicide. The police should launch a thorough investigation. Please don’t say I have committed suicide. To those who are like me, please publish your own “non-suicide vows” preemptively and declare them to the world, lest you are suicided.

我是徐子林，我绝不会自杀的。如果我有一天被各种方式给弄死了，都一定是他杀。请警方彻底追查到底，请不要说我被自杀。那些和我一样绝不自杀的人，请提前为自己写下“不自杀保证书”，并昭告天下，以防被自杀。

@白眼狮子大老爷: [Non-Suicide Vow] I am Master White-Eyed Lion (白眼狮子大老爷). I solemnly swear that I will never commit suicide. If one day I disappear, swallow poison, jump off a building, drown in the ocean, or do anything else unexpected,  it is homicide, and the police should investigate thoroughly. A big case like this must be resolved! I believe in you, gentlemen of peace.

【不自杀承诺保证书】我是白眼狮子大老爷，我郑重承诺，我绝对不会自杀。将来如果我失踪，服毒，跳楼，跳海或者是出现其他方式的意外，都是他杀，请警方务必彻查。大案必破！我相信你 平安君

The official Beijing police Weibo account is called “Peaceful Beijing” (@平安北京).

@法西斯集中营-毅: [Non-Suicide Vow] Though I am not afraid of death, I do not want to die. Though I may not always succeed in the pressures of life, eking out my insignificant existence is still a small matter. No matter how hard life may be, I will never commit suicide. If I should die in any type of accident, it is homicide, and the police should investigate thoroughly. Life is short and time flies. I will be a good child who loves life.

【不自杀承诺保证书】本人虽然不怕死，但绝对不想死，忍辱负重可能做不出来，但苟且偷生对小弟来说小事一桩。再苦再艰难都绝对不会自杀，在此之前，不管出现什么意外，均为他杀，请有关部门务必彻查。人生苦短，光阴飞逝，做个爱惜生命的好孩纸~

@Vegas-babe: #Anhuigirljumpsoffbuilding [Non-Suicide Vow] I, Xiao Yin, testify that I will never commit suicide! Not even if I am raped by 100 shameless men, have no car, no home, no lover, no money to feed myself, go through 100 break-ups, and develop gynecological complications from AIDS. If I should die suddenly, it’s homicide! The relevant departments must not blithely conclude my case. May 10, 2013 More: http://t.cn/zT8Uh4o

#安徽女孩坠楼#【不自杀声明】本人小茵在此声明，本人在有生之年绝不自杀！即使被100名抠脚大叔轮X没车没房没人爱没钱吃饭失恋100次得了艾滋妇科炎症，亦不会自杀或自主性堕楼等~倘若横死均为他杀！有关部门请勿随便定义~特此声明，2013年5月10日 详情:http://t.cn/zT8Uh4o

@杨佩昌: I suggest that all young and beautiful single women who love life should testify openly on Weibo: under no circumstance will I ever choose to take my own life.

建议热爱生活、年轻漂亮且未婚的女士在微博上发表公开声明：本人在任何情况下都不会选择自杀这条道路。-这年头防着点好，免得万一被自杀。

Via CDT Chinese. Translation by Junebug.

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Hu Jia, li wangyang, Netizen Voices, suicide, Wang Lihong, weibo, Yuan Liya
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Central Propaganda Department: The media are to cover all types of suicide cases in strict accordance with wire copy issued by authoritative judicial departments. Do not sensationalize or play up these stories, and do not independently investigate, report, or comment on them. (May 10, 2013)

中宣部：对各种自杀案件，各媒体严格按照司法权威部门发布的通稿刊播，不炒作渲染，不自行采访报道评论。

CDT has collected the selections we translate here from a variety of sources and has checked them against official Chinese media reports to confirm their implementation.

Since directives are sometimes communicated orally to journalists and editors, who then leak them online, the wording published here may not be exact. The original publication date on CDT Chinese is noted after the directives; the date given may indicate when the directive was leaked, rather than when it was issued. CDT does its utmost to verify dates and wording, but also takes precautions to protect the source.

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: censorship, Directives from the Ministry of Truth, Ministry of Truth, propaganda, suicide
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Word of the death spread on the Internet in the days after the woman, whose surname was Yuan, was initially said to have committed suicide by jumping from a top floor or roof of the mall, called Jingwen, last Friday. Rumors on the Internet said Ms. Yuan, a migrant worker from Anhui Province, had been raped by private security guards in the mall, where she worked, and might have been thrown to her death.

A witness told The Wall Street Journal that the protest had swelled by 10 a.m. and had ended by 5 p.m., though a heavy police presence lingered on the scene. CDT’s “Sensitive Words” project also noted that photos of riot police and police helicopters had spread on Weibo, while footage of the demonstration had emerged on Tencent.

The Guardian’s Jonathan Kaiman had more on the protests:

A shopkeeper who gave his name only as Mr Li said that some police had arrived at around 10am, followed by around 200 people who paraded down the street shouting “Protest! Protest!”

The rapidly growing number of officers then closed the road for the rest of the day, he said. Photographs of the scene posted online showed hundreds of people on the street, although it was not clear how many were protesters and how many were onlookers.

One bystander said that officers had clashed with protesters, beating them and dragging them into vans.

While police said a preliminary investigation and autopsy did not indicate foul play, and that the woman did not have any interaction with other people during the hours before she fell to her death, the state-run Global Times reported that the demonstrators demanded a more open investigation:

Rumors have been circulated online that Yuan was gang raped in a enclosed room inside the building by seven security guards, which led to her suicide, or that they even pushed her out. Yuan’s mother visited the Dahongmen Police Station supervising the market but was not allowed to see the surveillance footage, some Web users said.

Leslie Hook of the Financial Times wrote that the protest, which halted traffic in southern Beijing for hours, “highlights mounting social pressures facing China’s leaders:”

The area where Ms Yuan worked is poor and is mostly populated by “outsiders” such as herself who work in the garment trading industry, according to residents. Scepticism of the police is widespread in China and many smaller protests across the country have been sparked by allegations of malpractice.

By Wednesday evening, the protest had dissipated amid heavy rain, but a large military presence was still visible, with dozens of parked buses carrying special forces, soldiers and police.

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Anhui, Beijing, mass incidents, migrant workers, murder, protest, rape, suicide, women's rights, Yuan Liya
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Security and technology experts consulted by the FT reviewed the project plan and all noted its civilian and potential military applications. Robert York, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara – a world leader in GaN research and where Shane earned a doctorate in silicon devices – said it would be “unnerving but not surprising” if Huawei were to be trying to advance its GaN technology. The high-powered amplifier has civilian use but “could be used for a number of military applications: high-powered radar, electronic warfare including signal jamming and even potentially some weapons”, Professor York added.

Shane, it turns out, had deep misgivings about the project he was working on and feared he was compromising US national security. His family wants to know whether that project sent him to his grave.

Huawei denied on Monday that it had worked with IME on the project in question, according to Reuters:

“IME approached Huawei on one occasion to cooperate with them in the GaN field, but we decided not to accept, and consequently do not have any cooperation with IME related to GaN,” Huawei said in a statement.

…

At the heart of the family’s theory is that Todd was concerned for his safety because of a project with a Chinese company. They believed, through information from his colleagues and from his computer files, that the company was Huawei.

Reuters can’t independently corroborate their views about the role of Huawei or the circumstances of Todd’s death.

…

Huawei declined to say whether they had been working on other projects with IME. Colleagues said shortly after Todd’s death that he had told them at one point he had been working on a project with Huawei but that it was not sensitive or high-level in nature.

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: huawei, military technology, murder, Shane Todd, singapore, suicide
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

According to the police, at around 4:30 p.m. on September 26, Wang was discovered by the to have hanged himself while taking a shower in the bathroom. He was rushed to the emergency room by an ambulance at 5 p.m. and pronounced dead at 7:03 p.m. by the hospital staff.

[…] When Wang’s family arrived, they found multiple bruises clearly visible on his arms, legs and back. Deep strangulation marks could also been seen on his neck. His family was convinced that Wang’s death was a murder.

[…] Most netizens also seem to believe that it is a murder instead of a suicide, with a few exceptions who claimed the “bruises” are in fact only normal livor mortis, or postmortem lividity. One exclaimed, “During Shuanggui procedure, they torture (suspects) to death! Never buy the version in those movies!” Another chimed in, “Inspectors, you guys are as fierce as Japanese bandits!” Another lamented, “Anyone understands that better a live coward than a dead hero. But he really had to die.”

Wang’s case echoes that of Li Wangyang, a labour activist who ostensibly committed suicide in hospital in June, despite having defiantly stated days before that “I won’t retreat, even if I am beheaded.”

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: embezzlement, li wangyang, officials, officials suicide, Shuanggui, suicide, whistle-blower
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

试探性自杀 (shìtànxìng zìshā): half-hearted suicide attempt

Graphic showing the locations of Mr. Xie’s stab wounds.

On August 27, 2011, the body of Xie Yexin (谢业新) was found in his office with 11 stab wounds. Mr. Xie was a government official in Hubei Province and a member of the disciplinary committee. The month before his death he had investigated the local deputy secretary for corruption. The official cause of his death was ruled suicide, the explanation being that the initial stab wounds were “half-hearted suicide attempts,” followed by a final successful attempt. Netizens and Mr. Xie’s family were deeply skeptical of this official account.

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Hubei, suicide, word of the week, Xie Yexin
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Workers at a Foxconn Technology Group campus in China staged a protest last week, threatening to jump off a building if the company did not meet their compensation demands, according to local Chinese news reports.

[...]Working conditions at Foxconn’s factories in China have been under the spotlight since 2010, when a string of suicides occurred at the factories, that involved employees jumping off buildings. During that year, there were a total of 18 suicide attempts, with 14 deaths, according to watchdog group Students & Scholars Against Corporate Misbehavior.

The Telegraph’s Malcolm Moore provides us with an inside account of what drove the workers to these measures:

“We were put to work without any training, and paid piecemeal,” said one of the protesting workers, who asked not to be named. “The assembly line ran very fast and after just one morning we all had blisters and the skin on our hand was black. The factory was also really choked with dust and no one could bear it,” he said.

Several reports from inside Foxconn factories have suggested that while the company is more advanced than many of its competitors, it is run in a “military” fashion that many workers cannot cope with. At Foxconn’s flagship plant in Longhua, five per cent of its workers, or 24,000 people, quit every month.

“Because we could not cope, we went on strike,” said the worker. “It was not about the money but because we felt we had no options. At first, the managers said anyone who wanted to quit could have one month’s pay as compensation, but then they withdrew that offer. So we went to the roof and threatened a mass suicide”.

The protestors were eventually talked down from the rooftop by Wuhan mayor Tang Liangzhi. Visit Malcolm Moore’s Google+ page for more musings on the situation and the media’s reactions to it. Photos of the demonstration can be seen @shunqiziranba’s Tencent Weibo page.

A Foxconn factory in Shenzhen was the focus of this week’s episode of Chicago Public Radio’s This American Life. When devout member of the “cult of Mac” Mike Daisey sees his faith in all-things-Apple shaken, he travels to China for further investigation. The episode – in two acts – first tells Daisey’s story, and then examines the methods he utilized in his reporting. Visit This American Life’s homepage to hear the entire podcast:

Mike Daisey was a self-described “worshipper in the cult of Mac.” Then he saw some photos from a new iPhone, taken by workers at the factory where it was made. Mike wondered: Who makes all my crap? He traveled to China to find out.

[NOTE: This American Life has since retracted Mike DAisey's report after it was discovered that much of it had been fabricated. See more here.]

For more on Foxconn, protest and labor conditions in China, see prior CDT coverage of undercover journalism within the confines of a Foxconn factory, a documentary film about Chinese factory workers, or Foxconn’s plans to automate their assembly-line, minimizing the potential for suicidal workers.

© josh rudolph for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Apple, Foxconn, labor conditions, protest, suicide, workers rights
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

The two former monks, 18-year-old Thongan and 20-year-old Tenzin, set themselves on fire in Aba county in Sichuan province’s Aba prefecture Friday, according to the official Xinhua News Agency.

Xinhua cited an Aba county spokesman as saying the monks were rescued and were being treated at a local hospital for non-life-threatening injuries ….

Overseas Tibet activist groups gave slightly different accounts of the self-immolations. The Washington, D.C.-based International Campaign for Tibet said the two men were named Choephel, 19, and Kayang, 18, and that they clasped their hands together as they set themselves alight.

It and the London-based Free Tibet group said there were unconfirmed reports that Choephel died at the site.

The Guardian notes yet more confusion in accounts of the incident, as well as the relative novelty of this form of protest among Tibetans:

The public security bureau in Aba denied any knowledge of an incident. “Nothing like that happened here. I am not aware of the situation,” a spokeswoman told Reuters, despite claims that police officers had helped extinguish the flames and beaten the men as they took them to hospital.

Until 2009 experts knew of only one Tibetan self-immolation, by a lay person living overseas. But today’s death was the second at Kirti within a week – another monk set fire to himself on Monday – and the seventh in Sichuan within two and a half years. “This is a new development … We are all struggling for the right words to characterise what is happening,” said Kate Saunders of the International Campaign for Tibet.

In South Africa, meanwhile, controversy continues over the Dalai Lama’s absence from Desmond Tutu’s 80th birthday celebrations due to a visa “hiccup”. From The Guardian:

The South African government’s failure to grant an entry visa to the Dalai Lama has cast a pall over Tutu’s birthday week, with the archbishop denouncing the governing African National Congress (ANC) as worse than the apartheid regime, and warning that he would pray for its defeat ….

The ANC has denied giving in to Chinese pressure over the Dalai Lama’s visa, claiming it is still being processed and calling on Tutu to “calm down”. When asked if the Dalai Lama would be granted a visa, Motlanthe reportedly said: “I don’t see why it should be an issue at all ….”

The Dalai Lama is set to deliver a peace lecture via videolink on Saturday. His absence in Cape Town will be symbolised by an empty chair.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, Kirti monastery, self-immolations, Sichuan, South Africa, suicide, Tibet
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

The survey, released by the state center for disease control and the Beijing Huilongguan Hospital, showed that suicide was the fifth leading cause of death in China – but the first among the teenage and young adult group aged between 15 and 34 ….

Experts said the main reason for teenagers and young adults to commit suicide was because they suffered a great deal of pressure in their lives, leading to mental problems.

Teenagers’ pressure stemmed from study burdens, troubled relationships and job-hunting woes, while young adults faced problems like work pressure, financial burdens and securing proper child education, the study found.

The survey’s finding of 250,000 suicides per year is equivalent to around 18.5 per hundred thousand people. (For see international comparison see, cautiously, Wikipedia) China Daily reported almost identical figures in 2007: 250,000 suicides per year, and two million attempts (based on 2003 data from the health ministry), with suicide the leading cause of death among the young. The China Daily article notes the phenomenon of relatively widespread suicide among un- or underemployed young graduates, which has attracted particular attention: see also a Telegraph report from 2009.

Source: Suicide ‘the leading cause of death’ for young Chinese – Shanghai Daily

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Ministry of Health, suicide, unemployment
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

The three committed the tragic protest on September 10 when confronting workers who planned to demolish their house to make way for the construction of a bus station in the Fenggang township, Yihuang county, Fuzhou city.

Workers from the local construction department visited Zhong Rukui’s residence and tried to convince the family to accept the offered compensation.

Three family members appeared and began to threaten the workers that they would douse their bodies with gasoline and then light themselves.

The three – Luo Zhifeng, Ye Zhongcheng and Zhong Ruqin – then set themselves on fire and were taken to hospital.

Ye, 79, died Saturday morning and the other two are still being treated at the No. 1 Hospital Affiliated to the Nanchang University.

Eight officials, including Party chief of the county, head and deputy head of the county government, as well as principal officials from local departments of housing administration, construction, transport and public security, have been removed from their posts or placed under investigation, a spokesman with Fuzhou municipal government said Saturday.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: forced evictions, immolation, suicide
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

A startling 13 young workers attempted or committed suicide at the two Foxconn production facilities in southern China between January and May 2010. We can interpret their acts as protest against a global labor regime that is widely practiced in China. Their defiant deaths demand that society reflect upon the costs of a state-promoted development model that sacrifices dignity for corporate profit in the name of economic growth. Chinese migrant labor conditions as articulated by the state, are shaped by these intertwined forces: First, leading international brands have adopted unethical purchasing practices, resulting in substandard conditions in their global electronics supply chains. Second, management has used abusive and illegal methods to raise worker efficiency, generating widespread grievances and resistance at the workplace level. Third, local Chinese officials in collusion with enterprise management, systematically neglect workers’ rights, resulting in widespread misery and deepened social inequalities. The Foxconn human tragedy raises profound concerns about the working lives of the new generation of Chinese migrant workers. It also challenges the state-driven policy based on the use of internal rural migrant workers, whose labor and citizenship rights have been violated.

To die is the only way to testify that we ever lived

Perhaps for the Foxconn employees and employees like us

– we who are called nongmingong, rural migrant workers, in China –

the use of death is simply to testify that we were ever alive at all,

and that while we lived, we had only despair.

– a worker blog (after the 12th jump at Foxconn)1

See also an article from Caixin proclaiming that, with the Foxconn suicides and other forms of labor unrest, the end of the era of cheap labor is over. Read more about Foxconn via CDT.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Foxconn, labor unrest, migrant workers, suicide, workers rights
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

In many rural Chinese homes, a jar of pesticide—often a variety banned in Western countries—sits in the family outhouse. Even after harvest, farmers are loathe to throw out the remainder. Despite Chinese President Hu Jintao’s promise to create a “harmonious society” by improving people’s livelihood and reducing the gap between wealthy cities and the impoverished countryside, surviving in China’s rural areas still requires thrift.

But the pesticide that ensures an abundant crop all too often reaps sorrow.

Chinese women pride themselves on their ability to “eat bitterness,” or put up with sadness and stress. But every woman has her breaking point.

Pesticide ingestion is involved in 60 percent of Chinese suicides, according to the World Health Organization, which published a 2009 report suggesting a link between exposure to organophosphate pesticides, the type commonly used in China, and suicidal thoughts.

Rural Chinese women—with their easy access to toxic pesticides, social isolation, and unique burden of feudal obligations and modern stresses—have been particularly susceptible.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2010. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: rural women, suicide, women
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

The rash of suicides has intensified scrutiny of the working and living conditions at Foxconn, the world’s biggest contract electronics supplier. Responding to the clamor, Foxconn has raised salaries steeply twice in the last five days. The company announced the latest increase on Sunday, saying that after a three-month trial period, the basic salaries of many of its workers in China could reach nearly $300 a month, more than double what they were a few weeks ago.

Sociologists and other academics see the deaths as extreme signals of a more pervasive trend: a generation of workers rejecting the regimented hardships their predecessors endured as the cheap labor army behind China’s economic miracle.

Rather than take their own lives, many more workers at Foxconn — tens of thousands more — have simply quit. In recent interviews here, employees said the typical Foxconn hire lasted just a few months at the factory before leaving, demoralized.

They complain about military-style drills, verbal abuse by superiors and “self-criticisms” they are forced to read aloud, as well as occasionally being pressured to work as many 13 consecutive days to complete a big customer order — even when it means sleeping on the factory floor.

While the Washington Post looks at the role that demographics play in the dissatisfaction of this new generation of workers:

Shifting demographics, including years of effective population control through the government’s “one child” policy, have left China short of younger workers, particularly in the crucial 15-25 age group that many factories rely on most. These young workers don’t have to travel far from home like their parents did to find work. They are more aware of their rights. And having grown up in a more prosperous China, they are demanding a fairer share.

“The first generation of migrant workers made a lot of money compared with their poor life before,” said Cai He, dean of sociology at Sun Yat-sen University. “But right now the majority of migrant workers are in their 20s. They were born in the 1980s. Most of them have no farming experience” and “are more sensitive to the disparity between the wealth of the city and their own poverty.”

Cai added: “The younger people received a better education. They surf the Internet, use mobile phones and watch TV. Their awareness of their rights is much stronger than the older migrant workers.”

These young workers are asserting those rights in the form of work stoppages, slowdowns and demands for higher wages and shorter hours. The unrest was highlighted by a strike that began May 17 at Honda’s transmission factory in the city of Foshan, where hundreds of workers walked off the job.

Listen also to the latest Sinica podcast on “Suicides, Strikes and Labor Unrest in China.”

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Foxconn, labor rights, migrant workers, suicide, working conditions
Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall