Archive for ‘Human rights’

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09/02/2013

* China to compensate woman for detention in old morgue

China seems determined to allow its citizens to petition central government and to stop local authorities from preventing this from happening.

Reuters: “China will compensate a woman who was held in a disused morgue as punishment for going to Beijing to petition against her husband’s jailing, state media said on Friday, in an unusual case of the government overturning an extra-judicial detention.

Chen Qingxia was held for three years in an abandoned bungalow once used to store bodies in northeast China’s Heilongjiang province after being abducted from Beijing by security officials, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

She had gone to the capital to seek redress for her husband, Song Lisheng, whom she said had been mistreated while serving an 18-month sentence at a re-education through labor camp, Xinhua added.

While China routinely dismisses Western criticism of its human rights record, the government does respond to some abuses, especially the more egregious ones reported by domestic media, in an effort to show that authorities are not above criticism

Chen’s plight came to public attention in December after media reported that people found posters she had put on a window of the building pleading for help, it said.

Four officials, including three police officers, had been fired in connection with the case, Xinhua added.

The government will pay medical bills and living expenses for her and her husband and step up efforts to find their young son, who became separated from Chen when she was abducted in Beijing, it said.

The amount of compensation has yet to be decided.

Chen’s case is the second reported in a week of the authorities taking action over illegally detained petitioners. A court in Beijing sentenced 10 people to up to two years in jail for illegally detaining petitioners from another city, state media said on Tuesday.

Petitioners often try to take local disputes ranging from land grabs to corruption to higher levels in Beijing, though only small numbers are ever able to get a resolution.

In many instances, they are rounded up by men hired by provincial authorities to prevent the central government from learning of problems in outlying regions, forced home or held in “black jails“, unlawful secret detention facilities.”

via China to compensate woman for detention in old morgue | Reuters.

See also: https://chindia-alert.org/2012/07/14/china-top-leaders-vow-to-better-handle-peoples-petitions/
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Posted in China alert, Good news, Human rights, Illegal practices, Justice, labour camp, Petition, Politics, public protest, Reform, Rule of law | 1 Comment »

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25/01/2013

* China detains woman at disused mortuary for three years

BBC News: “China detains woman at disused mortuary for three year

A Chinese woman who petitioned the authorities over the treatment of her husband at a labour camp has been detained at a disused mortuary for the past three years, state media report.

An SVG map of China with Heilongjiang province...

An SVG map of China with Heilongjiang province highlighted in orange and Yichun city highlighted in red Legend: File:China map legend.png (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Chen Qingxia had already served 18 months at a re-education camp for her campaign, but continued to fight and so was confined to the mortuary.

Reports of her ordeal in the province of Heilongjiang have triggered an outcry on social media.

Ms Chen is said to be in poor health.

But correspondents say that it looks likely that restrictions on her will be relaxed soon – a committee has been formed in the city of Yichun to re-examine her case.

There has also been some speculation in recent weeks that the Chinese authorities might reform or rethink its system of re-education through labour.

Ms Chen’s ordeal began in 2003 when her husband was imprisoned for attempting to breach a quarantine during a Sars epidemic, according to the Global Times newspaper.

After he was freed, media reports say, his body was bruised and his mental health had deteriorated so much that Ms Chen decided to travel to the capital, Beijing, to complain to the central authorities about the treatment he had received.

The move led to her being put through a re-education camp for 18 months. After finishing the sentence, she was kept in the mortuary because she was still determined to continue her campaign.

A China National Radio report says that Mrs Chen has been allowed minimal contact with relatives.

Her husband was eventually admitted to hospital for treatment for his mental-health problems, the Global Times said.

The Communist Party’s district chief has been quoted by local television as saying local officials should bear responsibility for Mrs Chen’s treatment.”

via BBC News – China detains woman at disused mortuary for three years.

Posted in China alert, Human rights, Illegal practices, Justice, Petition, Politics, Reform, Rule of law, social media | Leave a Comment »

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01/01/2013

* Reform now or there’ll be a revolution, Chinese leaders told

The Times: “China faces the prospect of “violent revolution” if the Government fails to implement political reform, a group of prominent intellectuals is warning six weeks after the country’s change of leadership.

Liu Xia was filmed in her house as activists pushed past the guards

The call, from 73 of China’s leading scholars, came as dramatic footage emerged yesterday of activists pushing past security officials to reach Liu Xia, the wife of the Nobel Prizewinning dissident Liu Xiaobo.

In a pointed open letter, the academics warn: “If reforms to the system urgently needed by Chinese society keep being frustrated and stagnate without progress, then … China will again miss the opportunity for peaceful reform, and slip into the turbulence and chaos of violent revolution.”

Drafted by Zhang Qianfan, a Law Professor at Peking University, the letter has garnered signatures from such prominent figures as Zhang Sizhi, a lawyer who is known in China as “the conscience of the legal world” and is best known abroad as the man who defended Mao Zedong’s widow at her 1980 trial. Other well-known signatories include Hu Xingdou, a noted economist at the Beijing Institute of Technology, and Jiang Ping, the former dean of the Chinese University of Political Science and Law.

The letter was circulated on the internet but was quickly removed from Chinese news sites, and links to it have been removed from Mr Zhang’s profile on the microblog Weibo.

Entitled “An Initiative on Reform Consensus”, it has echoes of Charter 08, a manifesto published in 2008 calling for the protection of human rights and an end to one-party rule. The main author of that manifesto, Liu Xiaobo, was arrested on charges of subversion and sentenced to 11 years’ imprisonment in December 2009.

In a separate development Hu Jia, one of China’s leading dissidents, broke through a security cordon to enter the apartment of Mr Liu’s wife, who has been kept under house arrest since her husband won the peace prize. In a video clip of the confrontation, which was posted on YouTube yesterday, a security official is shown telling Mr Hu and two other activists that it will not be possible for them to see Ms Liu. In response, the three force their way past, saying: “Who are you to tell us it’s not possible?”

Although the petition, signed by the 73 academics last week, raises the spectre of violent revolution, the demands made are not as radical as those found in Liu Xiaobo’s 2008 charter. The signatories to the latest letter urge China’s new leaders to rule according to the country’s constitution. In particular, the letter underlines the Government’s duty to protect freedom of speech, the press and the right to demonstrate, to deepen market reform and to allow for an independent judiciary.

These advocates of reform may have been encouraged by signals sent out by Xi Jinping, China’s new leader, who succeeded Hu Jintao as General Secretary of the Communist Party in November.

Commentators have noted Mr Xi’s easy-going style compared with his predecessors and his decision to do away with red carpets for officials.

He has been quoted in the state press saying: “The Government earnestly wants to study the issues that are being brought up, and wants to perfect the market economy system … by deepening reform, and resolve the issues by strengthening rule of law.”

Judged by actions, the signals sent out by the new government have been mixed. An apparent easing of internet searching restrictions, during which it was possible to search Chinese microblogs for the names of top officials for the first time in months, was followed by legislation that critics say will discourage free commenting online by requiring real-name registration for internet users.

Similar hopes that Mr Hu would prove to be a reformer, which were aired when he first took office, were later dashed by years of stagnation on political reform, a period that has come to be known by many as the “lost decade”.”

via Reform now or there’ll be a revolution, Chinese leaders told | The Times.

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Posted in China alert, Dissident, Human rights, Illegal practices, Inequalities, Justice, Petitions, Politics, Reform, Rule of law | Leave a Comment »

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10/12/2012

* Defiant villager leaves developers stumped over gravesite

Having seen the success of ‘nail house’ resisters in gaining better compensation, we now have ‘nail graves’. Wonder what will come next.

SCMP: “A villager refusing to concede to a property developer’s demands to move a family gravesite off a piece of land left construction workers no choice but to dig around the grave, leaving behind a bizarre sight that has since spread on social media.

china-society-property-nail_grave_wh426_32901317.jpg

The solitary grave, which now sits on a mound of earth 10 metres off the ground in the middle of a construction site in Taiyuan, Shanxi province, has been given the term “nail grave” by netizens.

The term is a play on “nail house”, which was coined by developers for homes belonging to people – “stubborn as nails” – who refused to move even after being offered compensation.

Media reports speculate that developers had offered to pay about one million yuan (US$160,400) to move the grave and headstone.

The construction site, which once served as a public graveyard for local villagers, is giving way to a residential complex expected to be completed in April.

Since construction started in 2009, most villagers had already moved their family’s graves after compensation agreements with the developer.

In the face of China’s rapid economic development, Chinese property developers have been meeting much greater public resistance to what many see as forced land-grabs. Most are compensated with amounts less than their property’s net worth.

“Nail graves are an inevitable product of our country’s progress…the souls of the dead can not rest in peace,” wrote one blogger on Sina Weibo, China’s main microblogging site.

Although China has long encouraged cremation due to an alleged shortage of land for burials, ancestors are traditionally held in deep respect and many in the countryside continue to construct tombs in accordance with culture.

A similar incident occurred last month when authorities from the city of Zhoukou, Henan province, were forced to stop a campaign to clear graves for farmland after the demolition of more than two million tombs sparked an outcry across the country.”

via Defiant villager leaves developers stumped over gravesite | South China Morning Post.

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Posted in China alert, Citizens's rights, compensation, Construction, demolition, Human rights, land grab, urban development | 1 Comment »

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28/11/2012

* China to tighten laws on land grabs in rural stability push

The new leadership is already taking steps to improve conditions for the rural population of China. That is assuming local authorities take heed of central edicts.

Reuters: “China’s cabinet vowed on Wednesday to tighten laws on the expropriation of farmland, warning that the problem risked fuelling rural unrest and undermining the country’s food security.

“Rural land has been expropriated too much and too fast as industrialization and urbanization accelerate,” state news agency Xinhua reported, summing up a meeting of the State Council.

“It not only affects stability in the countryside but also threatens grain security.”

More reforms need to be put in place and a better legal system set up to resolve the problem, including stricter regulation on farmland expropriation, Xinhua said.

The meeting passed a draft law amendment altering rules on how to compensate farmers whose “collectively owned” land is expropriated, the news agency said, without providing details.

“The government must make efforts to beef up support for farmers and place rural development in a more important position,” it added.

While the comments on land seizures do not break new policy ground, they do underscore government jitters about rural discontent as President Hu Jintao prepares to hand over the running of the country to his successor, Vice President Xi Jinping, named Communist Party head this month.

Farmers in China do not directly own most of their fields. Instead, most rural land is owned collectively by a village, and farmers get leases that last for decades.

In theory, the villagers can collectively decide whether to apply to sell off or develop land. In practice, however, state officials usually decide. And hoping to win investment, revenues and pay-offs, they often override the wishes of farmers.

The number of “mass incidents” of unrest recorded by the e government grew from 8,700 in 1993 to about 90,000 in 2010, according to several government-backed studies. Some estimates are higher, and the government has not released official data for recent years.

Conflict over land requisitions accounted for more than 65 percent of rural “mass incidents”, the China Economic Times reported this year, citing survey data.”

via China to tighten laws on land grabs in rural stability push | Reuters.

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24/11/2012

* Guizhou man who broke tragic story of dumpster boys sent on ‘vacation’

Two steps forward, one step back OR is it one step forward , two back?

SCMP: “A former journalist who broke the story of the deaths of five street children in Bijie, Guizhou, a week ago has been sent on “a vacation” by local authorities trying to contain the fallout from the tragedy.

Li Muzi, the son of Li Yuanlong, said his father had been taken away by the authorities at 1pm on Wednesday and put on a plane at Guiyang airport for “a holiday” at a tourist destination he did not want disclosed.

“My father told me he received several phone calls before he was taken away from home,” said Li Muzi, who is studying in the United States. He keeps in contact with his father over the internet and by phone. “Apparently they are trying to prevent him from helping other reporters follow up on the incident.”

Li Yuanlong, a former Bijie Daily reporter, has written four postings on Kdnet.net  – a popular online bulletin board on the mainland – since last Friday  detailing the circumstances that led to the five boys’ deaths in a wheeled refuse bin in Bijie’s Qixingguan district that morning.

The victims, all brothers or cousins aged nine to 13, died of carbon monoxide poisoning after lighting a fire in the bin to escape the cold, according to an initial investigation by the city government.

Follow-up reports by mainland media that accused the local authorities of failing to act on parents’ pleas about the five missing boys for more than a week triggered a huge outcry.

Li Muzi said he spoke to his father around 9am yesterday and his father had asked him to delete a microblog entry he had written about  the  disappearance. He said his father was worried it could have a bearing on how long he would be kept away from home.

Li Fangping, a Beijing-based lawyer who has asked the Bijie city government to provide more information on its handling of the  boys before their deaths, said the local authorities had violated the law by  ordering Li Yuanlong’s disappearance.

“It’s the same kind of overkill in the name of stability maintenance that we saw in the lead-up to the Communist Party’s 18th national congress,” he said.

“What we’re seeing now is at odds with the harmonious and beautiful China that new leadership tries to project to the world.””

via Guizhou man who broke tragic story of dumpster boys sent on ‘vacation’ | South China Morning Post.

See also: https://chindia-alert.org/2012/11/23/assistance-mechanism-set-up-after-street-kids-death/

Posted in China alert, Economics, Household registration, Human rights, Justice, Migrant workers, Rule of law | Leave a Comment »

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22/11/2012

* Lone stand against wrecking ball

Even China cannot stop the determined individual protester. But this situation highlights the many protests against inadequate compensation for having to move home. The interesting thing about this post is that the source is China Daily, a state-sponsored news website.

China Daily: “An isolated five-floor building is standing in the middle of a new road that will soon be open in Wenling, Zhejiang province, the People’s Daily reported.

Lone stand against wrecking ball

A family from Xiazhangyang village insists on living on the isolated building, because they are not satisfied with the relocation compensation offered by the government, the neighbors said, according to the captions of the photos taken on Wednesday.

To guarantee their safety, neighboring rooms next to them are being kept from demolition, though the neighbors all moved out.

The road, which leads to the Wenling Railway Station, hasn’t been put into use yet.”

via Lone stand against wrecking ball[1]|chinadaily.com.cn.

Posted in China alert, Citizens's rights, Construction, demolition, Economics, Human rights, Justice, public protest | Leave a Comment »

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21/11/2012

* India outraged: voices rise in crescendo against ‘Facebook arrests’

Technoholik: “Oppressive, deplorable, arbitrary… the adjectives flew freely Tuesday as Indians across all sectors verbalised their outrage at the arrest of two young women who questioned on Facebook the shutdown in Mumbai after Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray‘s death.

Shaheen Dhada, left, and Renu Srinivas, who were arrested for their Facebook posts, leave a court in Mumbai on Nov 20, 2012

A day after 21-year-old Shaheen Dabha was arrested with her friend, who had ‘liked’ the post on Facebook, and her uncle’s clinic in Thane was vandalised, police arrested nine people believed to be from the Shiv Sena. Both the women were arrested Sunday – for “hurting religious sentiments” and under the Information Technology Act, 2000 – and released on bail Monday. Police also launched an inquiry against the arrests and the vandalism in Thane, near India’s financial and entertainment hub Mumbai.

But that did little to curb the democracy vs dictatorship debate and the mounting fury over police high-handedness. The topic was hotly discussed in college and school classrooms, in offices, on social networking sites and was also the top trending topic on Twitter. From corporates and students to politicians and academics, the voices of protest, young and old, rose in unison. “I am so scared to write on facebook… My freedom of expression is killed by the arrest of two young ladies in Mumbai,” wrote Guwahati-based wildlife activist Firoz Ahmed on his Facebook wall.

“Police officers who arrested the two girls in Mumbai shud be immediately dismissed. That’s minimum that the govt ought to do,” tweeted activist-turned-politician Arvind Kejriwal. “Now you can’t ask questions about why there should be a bandh? Did anyone notify the police that this is actually a democracy?” Mumbai-based author Jerry Pinto wrote angrily on his Facebook wall. In Mumbai-based communications professional Kumar Manish’s view, the arrests were an “oppressive way of muzzling voices”. “It is unfortunate and deplorable that Maharashtra Police, a state functionary, acts and reacts within couple of hours for an action which is within the laws enshrined in the Constitution of India… We are living in a democracy, let us not make it ‘demo-crazy’,” he added.”

via India outraged: voices rise in crescendo against ‘Facebook arrests’ | Technoholik.com.

Posted in Censorship, Citizens's rights, Human rights, India alert, Rule of law | Leave a Comment »

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28/10/2012

* China adopts mental health law to curb forced treatment

Reform and improvements keep coming.  Is it because of the decennial leadership change or is it due to genuine concern for the people; or maybe it’s a bit of both.

Reuters: “China adopted a law on Friday to protect for the first time the rights of the mentally ill after years of accusations that psychiatric hospitals are used to lock up people against their will and silence dissidents.

Human rights advocates called the hard-fought for law, which has been debated for more than two decades, significant, even though they say it still falls short of international standards as it allows for involuntary commitment without judicial review.

The law will “curb abuses regarding compulsory mental health treatment and protect citizens from undergoing unnecessary treatment or illegal hospitalization”, the Xinhua state news agency said.

“We welcome it because having a law is better than not having one,” Nicholas Bequelin, a researcher at Human Rights Watch, a New York-based advocacy group, told Reuters.

“The most important thing that this law does is it will allow civil society to step in to monitor and press for improvement in the management of mental health in China, including … pushing for greater transparency and progressive curtailment of police rights.”

Activists have long argued that authorities force people they consider troublemakers into psychiatric hospitals without providing any evidence of their supposed crimes.

The tactic has been used to silence dissidents, whistle-blowers and petitioners. More recently, it has been used by people against relatives during family disputes.

State media has reported on people being locked up in psychiatric hospitals against their will.

Chen Guoming, a former gold store owner, was forced into an asylum in 2011 by his wife and locked up for 56 days after refusing to lend money to his wife’s family, Xinhua said.

The new law bans mental health examinations of a citizen against his or her own will, Xinhua said.”

via China adopts mental health law to curb forced treatment | Reuters.

See also: https://chindia-alert.org/prognosis/chinese-challenges/

Posted in China alert, Citizens's rights, Human rights, Illegal practices, mental health, Social & cultural | Leave a Comment »

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28/10/2012

* Top China official urges residency permit reform

Given that Chinese manufacturing is almost entirely dependent on migrant labour, it is about time the government recognised the rights of this segment of the population.

Reuters: “China’s top security official called on Friday for the government to relax the controversial residency permit, or hukou, system to ensure the army of migrant workers can enjoy better services like health care and housing.

Migrant labourers work at a demolished residential site in Shanghai October 18, 2012. REUTER/Aly Song

The 230 million-strong migrant workforce drives China’s economy, but a lack of access to education, health and other services tied to the country’s strict household registration system forces massive saving, restraining Beijing’s efforts to shift the focus of growth to consumption from investment.

It also causes social tensions, something the stability-obsessed ruling Communist Party is desperate to avoid.

In comments to a work meeting cited by the official Xinhua news agency, security tsar Zhou Yongkang said China should establish as soon as possible a new “national residence permit system” to improve services for migrant workers.

The system would cover help with employment, health care, housing, social security and education for migrant workers’ children, said Zhou, a member of the party’s decision making inner circle, the Standing Committee.”

via Top China official urges residency permit reform | Reuters.

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