UYGHUR: Interview with Murat Nasirov’s Widow (013107)

Death of a Uyghur pop star: interview with his widow

Here is the full text of RFA’s recent interview with Natalia Nasirov by phone from Moscow. There is full coverage of the story from RFA’s Uyghur service in Arabic script, Romanised script and Cyrillic, and also in English.

Russian blogger Devushka Avaria calls for a moment of silence for Murat Nasirov. There are some comments on the media reports surrounding his death, and a brief translation.

Bao Tong’s essay on press freedom and the Olympics

Here is about 90 percent of the text of Bao Tong’s commentary on press freedom and the new regulations for foreign correspondents in China, recently aired on RFA’s Mandarin service broadcasts. The new rules take away (at least in theory) a major barrier to the reporting activities of foreign correspondents there, and may lead to more reporters being sent there in the run-up to the Games in 2008. But, as Bao points out, there’s a catch (surely not?):

“Last year the Foreign Ministry announced a new set of regulations, the most notewothy of which was No. 6: ‘From Jan. 1, 2007, foreign journalists will only need to obtain the consent of the organizations or people they wish to interview, and will not need to obtain the approval of the authorities first as in the past.’

The Pen club writes to the Chinese government

Update: Since this statement was issued, one of the conference participants, Zhang Yu, has been refused permission to go back to China.

The International PEN, the world association of writers, sent a letter to the Chinese governement, saying it is “deeply concerned by the travel restrictions placed on over twenty Chinese writers who were seeking to attend the International PEN Asia and Pacific Regional Conference ‘Writers in the Chinese World: A Literary Exchange’, held in Hong Kong from 2-5 February 2007.”

The world’s worst dictators

Parade Magazine, syndicated to more than 380 Sunday newspapers in the
United States, just published its annual list of the worst dictators. Out of 20 oppressive, non law abiding rulers, four of them govern the affairs of Radio Free Asia target countries.

This rather distressing list includes: 

North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il who makes it to number 2 on the list for his nuclear explosion and blatant abuse of human rights documented on RFA Korean.

China’s Hu Jintao who graduates from number 6 last year to number 4! RFA Mandarin, Cantonese, Uyghur and Tibetan all cover violations of the rule of law in China, with particular ferocity when it comes to the Uyghurs and the Tibetan populations.

Newsdesk: Guangdong unrest breaks out again

RFA’s Mandarin service has a report about more unrest in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong. The photos you see here were sent to RFA by the villagers of Longwan village, Suocheng township, Raoping county, near the city of Huzhou. Their complaint? As in so many other cases, that local officials sold their land out from under them for private gain, leading to loss of livelihood and way of life for rural communities.

On Sunday, the police arrested one of the villagers’ key activists, prompting a march on the township government offices by hundreds of local residents to demand his release. At this point, the villagers say, the government unleashed a bunch of mafia-type heavies to beat them up, leading to the scenes pictured above.

More than a hundred people got beaten up, many were injured in the clashes, and two people were taken to the emergency room, including the 18 year-old son of one of the activists (left), they said. One villager, identified as Ah Sen, told RFA reporter Ding Xiao: “They knew we were coming because they were ready and waiting for us when we arrived there. They had got 15-20 of our local mafia thugs, each with an iron pipe in his hand. When we arrived, the township leaders grabbed hold of the leading villager who carried a megaphone and said that pretty soon we’d be dying on this spot.”

Meanwhile, several hundred local residents blocked the main intersection in the township, preventing traffic from getting through on a major public road. This action, the villagers said, forced the authorities to release the two activists, Wu Shaojin and Wu Tingming. The latter told RFA that the police arrested them in the middle of the night with no identification and had mistreated them. [Mandarin mp3] “They intimidated us, beat us, threw cold water over us, and then refused to give us any clothes to wear in such cold weather. All we had was a shirt and shorts. They used very cruel methods. I asked them why they had detained us but they just carried on beating us. It was very cruel…I can’t really talk about it…” Wu said.

Another person who ended up in the Raoping County Hospital was 53 year-old Wu Xiao (right), father of the boy pictured above. Villagers said both had suffered head injuries. “My younger brother nearly died,” one said. “Three or four days later, they’re still trying to save him.”
A group of villagers was still occupying a small part of the land illegally sold by local officials on Wednesday (Feb 7, 07).

An officer who answered the phone Wednesday at the Suocheng township police station said he had no comment, when asked for an update on the situation.

To be confirmed: The company which bought the land is a listed energy company. I will verify the name and update, as I think it may be misprinted in the Chinese Web story.

Identity Crisis: China accused of attacking online Marxist archive

The New York Times carried a story yesterday about suspected Chinese attacks on the online Marxist International Archive. According to the story, workers at the archive are not certain who is responsible for the cyber attacks but they point out that China has temporarily banned the archive in the past, and the current attacks are only targetting Chinese files. The story does not clearly spell out why China would be interested in restriciting access to the archive but China Confidential has some theories.

Comment: Hu Jintao in Africa

Chinese President Hu Jintao is in the middle of his whirlwind tour of Africa, cementing economic partnerships and ensuring Chinese access to Africa’s natural resources for years to come. China has concentrated diplomatic efforts in Africa since the middle of the 20th century (if not earlier), and its relations with African countries have always been characterized in glowing terms – developing nations in solidarity allowing for greater influence on the world stage, China engaging in economic largesse in the interest of empowering the Third World, and now a mutually beneficial relationship that brings economic assistance and Chinese know-how to Africa in exchange for market access and natural resources to feed China’s ever growing appetite. The beast must be fed. China has announced that it will write off the debt of 33 African countries, further improving ties with governments on the continent. But does all of this really benefit the people of Africa? Does it serve their long-term interests? The aid from China comes with no preconditions, no call for economic liberalization or fairer distribution of wealth, and no calls for the development of democratic institutions. Chinese products now flood many markets in Africa and are squeezing out local goods. And Chinese workers are often brought in to work on Chinese sponsored construction projects, leaving African workers to watch from the sidelines.

So this week as Hu’s traveling circus landed in Zambia it was to a growing chorus of “boo’s.” Anti- Chinese sentiment in Zambia is on the rise. Two years ago 50 Zambian miners perished in an explosion at a Chinese-run mine, a tragedy said to be caused by poor safety standards. The families of the victims were rumored to be planning a protest during Hu’s visit over the meager compensation they received from the Chinese government. Hu cancelled a planned visit to the mine. Zambian opposition leaders have said they want to expel Chinese traders from the country. And the Economic Association of Zambia has said Chinese business practices are exploitative, create unsafe working conditions and provide low wages. Could this be an indication that Africa is becoming more wary of China’s intentions? Are China’s intentions righteous or are they moving toward what some call the “economic colonization” of Africa? Who knows? Hu knows.

On the lighter side….

I love you, however…

A man in China has persuaded his wife to have plastic surgery in order to make her look like his first wife.

Yum, stamps…

To celebrate the Year of the Pig, China has issued stamps that smell and taste like sweet and sour pork.

Mirror, mirror, on the… 

An ancient Chinese mirror worth nearly $1 million dollars was dropped and smashed while being displayed on a Chinese auction television show.  

Google (soul) search: China censorship was bad for business

Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, conceded last week that the decision to modify the Google search engine in China, in compliance with Chinese government demands, has been bad for business. (Online newspaper Guardian has the full story).  Not quite the mea culpa many had hoped for, but perhaps a move in the right direction.  In the past Brin has admitted that Google was forced to compromise its principles in order to operate in China. The company launched in China in 2005, but Chinese users are not able to search for topics such as Falun Gong or Tiananmen Square.  The admission comes on the heels of reports that Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and others are working together to modify their rules of engagement for China.  You can find a good commentary on this at Onemanbandwith.

Photo courtesy of Google

Newsdesk: Guo Feixiong sent to Shenyang

Zhang Qing, the wife of Guandong-based civil rights lawyer Guo Feixiong, who is under detention and charged with ‘illegal business activities’, was told on Jan. 19 that her husband’s case was being sent back to the police for ‘further investigations’. This is quite a rare occurrence in China, where attitudes with the judiciary tend to be based on the upholding of state power, rather than the rule of law. One imagines in these cases that the evidence against Guo must be particularly flimsy. He was also transferred to the Liaoning provincial detention center in the northeastern city of Shenyang. I hope this isn’t a ‘rendition’ within China, a way of outsourcing torture, as the Guangzhou detention center’s methods don’t seem to have elicited a confession. RFA’s Mandarin service has the full details.(ZH)