Panel discussion: Shanxi brick kiln slave scandal

MANDARIN: Brick Kiln Slave Labor (06/18/07)
Length: 4:40
Reporter: Shen Hua

Shen Hua (SH): According to Chinese media reports, Wang Dongji, father of Wang Bingbing, owner of the black brick kiln in Caosheng Village of Hongdong County in Shanxi Province, served as the delegate of the Hongdong County People’s Congress for two consecutive terms and the Secretary of the Caosheng Village Party branch. He is now removed from his office and has been expelled from the Party. In addition, Wang Bingbing, labor contractor of the black brick kiln Heng Tinghan, and some hatchet men were arrested and brought to justice. A report by the English-language China Daily stated that more than 160 suspects implicated in the brick kiln slave labor case have been detained so far. Meanwhile, several hundred imprisoned peasant workers were rescued and were each given RMB 1,000 yuan as consolation money from the government.

Australian businesswoman Ma Ping and Song Pingshun

In 2004, RFA’s Mandarin service programme, Investigative Report(ZH), reported on the allegations of Australian businesswoman Ma Ping, and her account of her time inside a Tianjin detention centre.

“They threw a bowl of water over me and I woke up. There was blood all over my face. My face was a pulp. I was huddled on the floor and I asked them, talk to me. Don’t beat me any more.”

Ma Ping

 

Video: Chongqing riot over student’s death

RFA’s Cantonese service obtained this mobile phone video of the Chongqing unrest described here:

BEIJING, July 2 (AFP) — Thousands of villagers in southwest China smashed cars and fought with police in a protest over a murdered student, an official and a rights group said Monday.

Confessions of a karaoke addict: Three music videos for Hong Kong’s anniversary

“Because you are there” (in Chinese “You were always there”, and while it’s Hong Kong that was alluded to in the lyrics, one can’t help but read it as a paean to the Motherland.) It’s hard to describe this official theme tune for the 10th anniversary of the handover. My first thought was: “Ah, Hong Kong’s got its own Malaysia song!”

Historical video: Thatcher talks to Blue Peter about Cambodia

The UK children’s show, Blue Peter, attempts to explain the intricacies of Cambodian politics to its audience (aged 5-15) and follows it up with an interview with then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Posted on YouTube by 10 Downing Street.

Mandarin: The Internet and civil rights in China

RFA Mandarin service reporter Wu Jing is currently airing an eight-part feature series on the Internet in China (ZH), and its role in the country’s civil rights movement. Here, she summarizes her programs in English, beginning with Part 1:

A magazine editor in Fujian province for example confesses that, staying online 12 hours everyday, he is in a state of being” possessed by the devil.” His online activities include almost everything from chatting to listening to music, watching movies, booking flight tickets, looking up maps, and to writing and publishing articles. The Internet has intruded his life so deeply and widely that he cannot imagine what life would be like without it.

Panel discussion on press freedom and the Internet in China

Yin-Ting Mak: The Internet plays a large role in compelling the traditional media to change. Traditional media will feel the pressure if it fails to report what the Internet has reported. People won’t read newspapers and magazines if they do not report what the Internet has reported. 

Cao Changqing: Newspapers have to cater to their readers, who are their “gods.” They will not select newspapers that do not report the truth. 

Liu Xiaobo: As the online media has become increasingly free of restrictions, traditional media has realized that, even if it does not report or get involved in something, the online media will. As a result, it has been using the strategy of “touching the outer edge of the penalty area” in news reporting. 

Yin-Ting Mak is the former chairperson of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, Cao Changqing is the former deputy editor-in-chief of Shenzhen Youth News, and Liu Xiaobo is a writer and freelancer.

50 Years On: China’s ‘rightists’ remember

 The Anti-Rightist Movement (反右派运动) of the People’s Republic of China in the 1950s and early 1960s consisted of a series of campaigns to purge alleged “rightists” within the Communist Party of China and abroad. The campaigns were instigated by the Chairman, Mao Zedong.

— Wikipedia

“At that time there were huge struggle meetings with more than 1,400 people attending. I was struggled for an entire day. I was 22 years old. The mayor and the Chengdu municipal Party secretary even attended. They told me to speak up for myself, and I said three things. One was that I had never hated the Communist Party because I was born to a poor family and my father had never been punished by the Party; the second was that I loved socialism and the Communist Party. The third was that I was not a rightist. They said I was diehard and sent me off to the labor camp for re-education through labor.”

— former ‘rightist’ Tie Liu

Bao Tong on the 50th anniversary of the Anti-Rightist Campaign

This essay was broadcast exclusively on RFA’s Mandarin service June 14 under the title, 论反右派斗争的非法性-为反右派斗争五十周年作:

On the illegality of the anti-rightist struggle–written on the 50th anniversary of the Anti-Rightist Movement.

By Bao Tong

What sort of a crime is denying the leadership of the Party or reversing the direction of socialism? Citizens have a right to express agreement or disagreement with the Party’s leadership or with the direction of socialism. This is a legal act. The State and the law have a responsibility to protect it, not the right to punish it. Didn’t “we” allow tens of millions of people to starve to death through the “progress” achieved through the Party’s leadership and socialism, and persecute two hundred million more? The label “murderous spirit” should rather be applied to Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, who wiped out 550,000 people.

Confinement and Discrimination: Disabled in North Korea

Based on accounts by North Korean defectors, it appears that the disabled are one of the most vulnerable categories within a general population that has long been suffering from severe food shortages and the de facto collapse of the health system. According to the defectors, the disabled are held in contempt, marginalized, and often confined to their homes for long periods of time, since no appropriate disability welfare or rehabilitation systems are in place. Derogatory terms are habitually used in relation to the disabled, and if disabled babies are born into families that reside in Pyongyang, these families are often forcibly relocated to the rural areas.