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: 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: 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.

China: Population controls to stay in place

 

Translated by Chen Ping.

计生委会主任表示计划生育政策不会调整

RFA Washington – Han Qing reports on March 10:

China’s National Family Planning Committee Chairman Zhang Weiqing recently said the present family planning policy of China would not change. He said in the next decade, China’s birth rate will be surging, forming a small upwards curve in population increase projections. If China changes birth control policy now, there will be even more people around compared with the small surge currently predicted.

China: Petitioner belief prompts pre-Olympic rush on capital

There is a saying among petitioners that if your problem cannot be solved before the Olympics, it will be even harder after the Games.

– Petitioner Liu Feiyue

The strength of this belief reminds me of the mythologies and stories told by other groups in a state of severe disempowerment, like street children. These stories are used like maps in a hostile terrain in which recognisable, ‘normal’ human meaning systems  (eg: children will be cared for; the judicial system will mostly apply the law) have completely broken down. I suppose I think this because from where I’m sitting, petitioners look equally unlikely to get what they are looking for on either side of the Olympics. The following is a digest of recent reporting on petitioners and blogger activists by RFA’s Mandarin service, translated by Chen Ping:

China: “Help us, journalists!”

From RFA’s Mandarin service (in Chinese): In recent days around 1,200 petitioners have penned an open letter to China’s parliament calling for greater recognition of the rights violations they say they suffered at the hands of officials.

Several hundred petitioners marched towards Gongyi East overpass Thursday hoping to meet with foreign journalists, but the group was intercepted and broken up by police. Some were detained and taken to the unofficial detention center at Majialou to await forcible removal to their hometowns.

Wife of Shandong activist prevented from visiting, German TV crew attacked

Jan 24, Yinan county, Shandong. From RFA’s Mandarin service (ZH):

Yuan Weijing and her two-year-old daughter were pulled back home suddenly while they were on their way to nearby Linyi municipal jail to visit blind family planning activist Chen Guangcheng. Four journalists from a German television station were waiting for her not far from the family’s home in Dongshigu village. They were set upon and beaten by some of the security officers guarding Wei.

At 4.30 p.m. local time on Jan. 24, the German TV crew, consisting of three men and one woman, took up their positions outside the Chen family home

China: Tough on mental health patients

Guo Zhong of Zibo city, Shandong province wrote an open letter to Chinese premier Wen Jiabao on Dec. 16. In it, he describes the suffering of his wife from mental illness over the past seven years, and the lack of medical and social support that is generally available to mental health patients. He calls on Wen to increase government investment in mental health services, and to pay close attention to the need for a Mental Health Law.

China: Police raid Bible meeting, detain 270

“They divided us into pairs and handcuffed us all together with our partner and marched us off to the police station for questioning. Some of the congregation were beaten during our detention, during questioning. Others were frequently subjected to mental torture,” he said.

Each person was told they had to pay 300 yuan for their living expenses during their 15-day detention period. The police then refused to give back any of the money when many of the detainees were released after 2-3 days, he said.

— participant in a Bible study meeting of house church pastors in Shandong, eastern China

Qingdao: Eviction on National Day holiday?

This rather shaky video was taken on Danxian Road, and appears to show the authorities removing banners attached to the roof of the apartment building.

More than 200 residents of an apartment block in the eastern coastal city of Qingdao have begun a protest after being ordered to vacate their homes, RFA’s Cantonese service reports.