China: Patriotism flares, government picks up fire-hoses

Professor Guo Quan of Nanjing Normal University told Mandarin reporter Ding Xiao that student counselors have been told to pay attention to students’ movements, and to make sure they are not going to stage public demonstrations:

All the student counselors have been told to ‘manage student sentiment’ and to learn what students are going to do, and to make sure that students don’t go out to demonstrate.

China, Tibet: Interview with Grace Wang

A Chinese student at Duke University in North Carolina who wrote “Free Tibet” on the back of an anti-Chinese protester during an attempt to mediate a campus dispute over Tibet is now hated by former classmates and teachers alike, a former teacher said.

China, Tibet: Updates from Qinghai and Sichuan

From Mandarin service reporter Shen Hua:

There were Tibetan protests in Heka Township in Xinghai County of Qinghai Province on March 25. Around 15 or 16 participants have been detained, including some who surrendered themselves to police.

Gesang Jianzan, a member of the Tibetan Government in Exile told RFA that “As far as I know, around a thousand Tibetans took part in the protests, including monks and laymen. They carried banners such as ‘There is no freedom in Tibet!’ ‘Let Dalai Lama home!’” “Several dozens have been arrested, including several people of whom I know their names.”

Mr. Zhang in Heka Township told RFA that “I heard several dozens of Tibetan demonstrated on March 25. They were carrying white flags at the demonstration.” He said “Now the local situation is stable.” The white flags are in fact banners with slogans.

China, Tibet: Interview with a Qinghai Tibetan youth

From RFA Mandarin service reporter Ding Xiao in Hong Kong. Translated by Chen Ping.

After the Tibet riots, the communications of Tibetans living in China are under surveillance, and they don’t dare to express their views for fear of retribution for the authorities, as talking to foreign media might get them punished. However, a Tibetan youth who lives in the Mgo Log (in Chinese, Guoluo) Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, in the northwestern province of Qinghai, told us some of his thoughts on the recent unrest:

Tibetan: Recently the tensions have been subsided pretty much, and we can cross into neighboring province. For example, we can travel to Aba Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture of Sichuan Province with an ID of any kind. However, soldiers are currently going around temples, several in a group, always.

RFA: Any reduction of security forces?

Tibetan: No, it is still the same. Probably they will withdraw after September. We inevitably feel oppressed as troops are everywhere and we cannot go out easily.

RFA: Do you Tibetans discuss the current situation?

Tibetan: Normally we don’t talk about it. There was never any freedom of speech in China in the first place.

Video: Chinese remember Zhao Ziyang on Qing Ming

From RFA’s Cantonese service. Here is the script of a voice-over I wrote explaining what is going on in the video. I will post the English version if/when it appears on YouTube; until then…

One by one, people file quietly into the home of Zhao Ziyang, the late former Communist Party leader who fell from grace in the wake of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989. Zhao’s family have set up a memorial shrine inside the traditional courtyard house, to mark the Chinese grave-sweeping festival of Qing Ming.

Sichuan: Troops ‘will stay until after the Olympics’

From RFA’s Mandarin service.

A woman from Karze (in Chinese, Ganzi) county in the southwestern province of Sichuan, who has spoken to RFA before, indirectly indicated to Mandarin reporter Qiao Long that troops are still stationed in the area:

“Tibetans here won’t be able to stage any protest,” she said. “The death from last week’s protest, occurred in the urban area.”

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: 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.”