Monthly Archives: 8月 2015

Jia Jia: You’ve Got Candles, I’ve Got a Whip

Published: August 16, 2015

“Stop lighting your candles. Pick up a leather lash, and flog hard those derelict in their duty who treat human lives like dirt.”

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For the last two nights, seeing candles across my computer screen, I’ve wanted to burst out with curses: So you’ve got candles, but is that all you’ve got? Or are candles the only thing you deserve to have? Facing the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008, and all the other disasters which Continue reading

Interview with a Wenzhou Pastor: The Chinese Government’s Large-Scale Destruction of Crosses in Zhejiang Province

By Yaxue Cao, published: July 29, 2015

Yaxue spoke with Pastor L in Wenzhou on July 26.

YC: I began paying attention to the demolition of churches and tearing-down of crosses in Zhejiang last year after reading many international media reports on the demolition of the Sanjiang Church (三江教堂) in Wenzhou. Recently there’s been a resurgence of cross-removals, and the daily news items and images of this are quite shocking. It seems the Chinese government is determined to tear down every cross in Zhejiang!

I’ve also read the statements issued both this year and last year Continue reading

Protests as U.S. Calls For Release of Detained Chinese Rights Lawyers

 

a0c697c5-8ea6-4252-8e69-9ef9951f5d90UPDATED at 11:45 A.M. EST on 2015-08-14

Chinese and U.S. officials wrapped up the last day of bilateral human rights talks in Washington on Friday, following growing calls for a tougher line with Beijing on human rights.

Dozens of protesters gathered outside the Chinese Embassy in Washington on Thursday in protest at the country’s human rights record, citing a recent crackdown on Continue reading

Teasing Out Ai Weiwei’s Endgame, After China Lifts a Travel Ban

By DIDI KIRSTEN TATLOW AUGUST 12, 2015 5:00 PM August 12, 2015 5:00 pm
12SINO-LETTER-tmagArticleAi Weiwei in his workshop in Berlin last week, among stools that were featured in his 2014 show “Evidence” at the Martin-Gropius-Bau exhibition hall.Credit Michael Kappeler/European Pressphoto Agency
‘‘Silence, exile and cunning’’ was James Joyce’s formula for the artist to survive in a treacherous world.

The Chinese artist Ai Weiwei seems to be trying something different.

For one thing, Mr. Ai doesn’t want exile, he told the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper in Germany, shortly after the Chinese authorities lifted the ban on his travel, Continue reading

China Turns Down Parole Bid From Jailed Nobel Peace Laureate

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2015-08-13

A portrait of Liu Xiaobo hangs near the empty chair placed in his honor during the ceremony in Oslo, Norway in which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in absentia on Dec. 10, 2010.
AFP

The ruling Chinese Communist Party has denied an application for parole by jailed Chinese Nobel peace laureate Liu Xiaobo, a Hong Kong-based rights group reported, as U.S. Continue reading

Chinese Lawyers, Activists Call For a Rights Dialogue With Teeth

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A group of Chinese rights lawyers and activists has called on the United States to put pressure on Beijing at this year’s bilateral human rights dialogue in the wake of a nationwide crackdown on the country’s embattled legal profession and a slew of repressive laws. Continue reading

Chinese Activist Free After Post-Release ‘Disappearance’

2015-08-11

1a1375af-97ec-47ad-8d42-c138b2dd4781Ou Biaofeng (L) meets with Li Huaping (R) following the latter’s release, Aug. 11, 2015.
Photo courtesy of Ou Biaofeng
Chinese rights activist Li Huaping, known by his online nickname “Norwegian Wood,” or Nuowei Senlin, says he was taken away by police on his release from a detention center in the eastern province of Anhui, and taken to a neighboring province in handcuffs.

The New Citizens’ Movement activist was scheduled for release on Sunday, but his family raised the alarm when he “disappeared” after leaving the detention center.

Police also rounded up a number of Li’s supporters, who had planned to meet him when he came out, stopping them from traveling to carry out their plan.

“A gang of people put handcuffs on me at around 4:00 p.m. [on Sunday] and forcibly carried me away,” Li said via social media on Tuesday, thanking his supporters for their concern over his status.

“I was locked up in a barred prison van like a cage by five police officers,” he wrote. “We arrived in Zhuzhou, Hunan province about 12 hours later.”

Li added: “They didn’t take the handcuffs off me until I was out of the vehicle.”

Li said he had been left unceremoniously in Zhuzhou with no way to contact any of his family or friends.

“I had no way of buying a SIM card, because I had no ID documents, only the red civilian clothes that I had on when I left the prison.”

“I found somewhere to sleep and didn’t wake up till [the next day], then managed to get in touch with my nephew,” Li added.

Li later told RFA using a chat program that he felt unable to comment further, however: “I understand the difficulties my fellow [activists] are in, and I need to be alone for awhile now … to deal with some private matters,” he said.

“I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to make any public comment right now, and I plan to go somewhere quiet to rest and write.”

Li was released after serving a two-year jail term for “gathering a crowd to disturb public order” after he helped organize protest activities in support of Zhang Anni, the daughter of veteran dissident Zhang Lin who was denied schooling by the Anhui authorities.

Lawsuit planned

Meanwhile, Hubei-based dissident Liu Benqi said he plans to sue the authorities over torture and mistreatment he said was meted out to him in prison.

Liu, who was recently released after serving a three-year jail term for “incitement to subvert state power,” said he was subjected to “inhuman” treatment at the hands of prison guards.

“[I was subjected to] tiger bench, police batons, head in a bag, manacles, leg irons and hard labor for long hours at a time,” Liu said when asked about his treatment in prison.

“I was deep inside the tiger’s den, and they beat me with long poles like crazy people killing an animal,” he said. “I was on the tiger bench for 40 days, tied up for the first two days, until they untied me and my legs and feet and arms were all swollen up.”

Tiger bench refers to a torture method which involves strapping a prisoner to a long wooden board below the knees and placing bricks under their feet, putting strain on their extremities, and sometimes breaking their legs.

Liu said he was also beaten up by fellow inmates, with the guards’ knowledge and backing.

“They sent inmates to beat up other inmates [because] I refused to admit that I was a criminal the whole time,” Liu said. “They beat me because I refused to admit my crimes, but they would have beaten me anyway.”

“They should bear the blame for this; the police were beating up inmates, not just standing by and watching them get beaten up,” he said.
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Veteran Chinese Democracy Activist Seeks Political Asylum in Taiwan

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Chinese activist Gong Yujian displays a document from his 1994 imprisonment in undated photo.
RFA
A veteran Chinese dissident who served time in labor camp in the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre has defected to Taiwan during a tourist visit to the democratic island.

Gong Yujian, who began a life of political activism after being heavily influenced by the 1989 pro-democracy movement in Beijing, said he had made the decision Continue reading