China, Tibet: Paris protests

“No torch in Tibet!” reads the banner suspended from this Parisian bridge by protesters during the march of the Olympic torch, which makes its way to Beijing this summer.

Photo: Students for a Free Tibet photostream on Flickr.

China: More police, more protests, in Tibetan areas

Tibetan exiles and a witness in China’s southwestern Sichuan province report further protests in the troubled Kardze region, saying four to five people were seriously injured when police fired on a crowd of up to 1,000 people. Now locals are saying that Chinese paramilitary police are being billeted in area hotels with plans to stay until after the Olympic Games in August.

A Tibetan witness in Daofu (Dawu), in Kardze (in Chinese, Ganzi), told RFA’s Tibetan service April 5 that a protest was under way, with 15 people injured, five of them seriously. The five who were gravely wounded were all initially taken into custody, the witness said.

“The monks called the head of Daofu county and warned that if those detained weren’t released, all the monks would continue protesting even if it meant they would be killed. So the county chief released those who were injured and detained. There were about 15 Tibetans who were injured and five are in serious condition,” the witness said. “Please tell the world what we are doing here and that the Chinese are waging a violent crackdown,” the witness said. The call was lost, and the line was dead when a reporter tried to ring back.

Uyghurs: Police raid Uyghur houses in Gulja

Qiao Long reports today (translation by Chen Ping):

Police of Xinjiang’s Yining City recently conducted two raids in Alamutuya Village of Yengiyer Township, and found locations where the Uyghurs were allegedly hiding their guns. Seven people were detained.

An employee at the Village Committee in Alamutuya: The detained people belong to the fifth production brigade.

RFA: How many people were detained?

Villager: One from each family.

RFA: Han Chinese or Uyghur?

Villager: Uyghur.

China: Hu Jia sentenced to 3 1/2 years

Authorities in Beijing have sentenced AIDS activist Hu Jia to three-and-a-half years’ imprisonment for “incitement to subversion” after he wrote articles online critical of China’s hosting of the Olympics. The sentence was handed down Thursday by the Beijing No.1 Intermediate People’s Court.

We cannot accept this verdict, because the peaceful words Hu expressed are irrelevant to state power. Therefore, the 3 1/2-year prison sentence is inappropriate.

— Hu’s lawyer, Li Fangping, speaking to Mandarin reporter Ding Xiao

China: Pregnant woman’s flight from abortion squad

In Zhubao township in the eastern province of Shandong, family planning officials detained and beat the sister of one pregnant woman who had already given birth to one child, the family told RFA’s Cantonese service.

The woman, who lives near Linyi city, where family planning abuses have already been widely documented, is eight months pregnant. She went into hiding with her husband to escape the forced abortion which she says would otherwise be inevitable. When the authorities couldn’t find her, they detained her elder sister.

“After they took her away they were asking her questions about our other sister [the pregnant woman],” a younger sister told reporter Grace Kei Lai-see.

China’s ‘other Tibetans,’ the Uyghurs, stage protests

Several hundred ethnic Uyghurs have staged protests in China’s remote and restive Xinjiang region following the death in custody of a prominent Uyghur businessman and philanthropist. Witnesses report protests at two locations in Khotan prefecture—in Khotan city March 23-24 and Qaraqash county March 23, RFA’s Uyghur service reports. Several hundred protesters were taken into custody, numerous sources said, and security remains tight.

Numerous sources said the demonstrations followed the death in custody of a wealthy Uyghur jade trader and philanthropist, Mutallip Hajim, 38. Police returned his body to relatives March 3 after two months in custody, saying he had died in hospital of heart trouble. According to an authoritative source, police instructed the family to bury him immediately and inform no one of his death.

Cambodians homeless, missing after landslide

RFA’s Khmer service documented a large-scale landslide in Phnom Penh today as residents in a crowded area of the Cambodian capital scrambled to account for relatives and salvage what they could after a 50-meter bank of the Tonle Sap River slid into the water. At the end of the day, neither the cause of the disaster nor the number of people left dead or homeless was unknown.

Phnom Penh Police Commissioner General Touch Naroth said 500 to 600 officers had been mobilized to rescue victims from the landslide at Reussey Keo. The area of the landslide was roughly 60 meters long and 30 meters wide, and it took some 38 houses with it, Touch Naroth said. Another senior official, Phnom Penh City Governor Kep Chutema, said city authorities were on standby in case of further landslides.

“We’re not sure yet” how many people might have been submerged as well, he said. “But we picked up five children from the water and told people to collect their family members and review and count themselves. Now they are collecting their belongings.”

China: Family planning abuses return in Shandong

China has recently announced its family planning policies are here to stay. This report from RFA’s Mandarin service finds out about the situation in Linyi city and Yinan county in the eastern province of Shandong, three years after civil rights activist Chen Guangcheng made his first blistering expose of human rights abuses under the one-child policy:

Chen Guangcheng was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment in August 2006 for “damaging property and organizing a mob to disturb traffic.”

His writings, which blew the whistle on the use of forced abortions and other abuses in Linyi city and his home county of Yinan, were widely distributed on the Internet and read by many in China. His wife, Yuan Weijing, told RFA reporter Wen Jian:

It is just the same as it always was here.

Uyghurs: China’s anti-porn campaign in Xinjiang

UYGHUR: 100-Day Campaign against “Pornographic Publications” (03/17/08)
Reporter: Kurban Wali

RFA: Dear radio listeners, according to the Tangritagh News Web site of China, Mr. Li Yi, head of the propaganda committee of the Chinese Communist Party’s Xinjiang branch, held a teleconference in Urumqi today, March 17, to organize a 100-day campaign against pornography.

李屹在会议上作了重要讲话，他肯定了过去一年“扫黄打非”取得的成绩，并提出了2008年自治区“扫黄打非”工作总的要求是：高举中国特色社会主义伟大旗 帜，以邓小平理论和“三个代表”重要思想为指导，全面贯彻党的十七大精神，深入落实科学发展观，以打击政治性、宗教类非法出版物为重点，加强日常监管，开 展专项行动，打击侵权盗版行为，开展网上“扫黄打非”斗争，查处非法报刊制售活动，扫除淫秽色情等文化垃圾，全力维护国家安定、社会稳定和文化安全，为新 疆改革、发展、稳定营造良好的文化舆论环境。More here…

During the meeting, Li Yi recognized the achievements of last year’s anti-pornography campaign in Xinjiang, saying that the challenges for 2008 were to hold high the glorious banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and taking Deng Xiaoping thought and the “Three Represents” as a guide, to fully implement the spirit of the 17th Party Congress, to put fully into practice the principles of scientific development, and to concentrate efforts towards cracking down on illegal publications containing religious and political material.

China: Tibetan protests linger in Sichuan, Gansu

A resident of Zhuoni county, Gansu province surnamed Zhou, Gansu province said: “A division of armed forces from Wuhan, Hubei province have been deployed in the Zhuoni county area.” He added: “Armed police are trying to arrest Tibetans who remain at large and there is still sporadic rioting.”