Monthly Archives: 2月 2017

Court applies for fourth verdict deferral for Chinese activist who voiced support for Occupy protests

A Guangxi court has applied for the verdict for women’s rights activist Su Changlan to be deferred for the fourth time, her lawyer has said. Su was detained in October 2014 after making comments on social media in support of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy Occupy movement. She previously worked as a volunteer for the New York-based Women’s Rights in China group, and has been a long time campaigner for women’s and children’s rights. Continue reading

Aram Bakshian Jr.: China and America, and the romance of history’s oddest couple

John Pomfret-ChinaTHE BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY AND THE MIDDLE KINGDOM: AMERICA AND CHINA, 1776 TO THE PRESENT
By John Pomfret

Henry Holt, $40, 693 pages Continue reading

SHAO JIANG: Remembrance and Resistance:the 26th Anniversary of the Tiananmen Massacre (Beijing Massacre 1989)

On Thursday the 4th of June, 7pm-9pm, around 110 people gathered outside the Chinese Embassy in London to commemorate victims of the Tiananmen Massacre in 1989. Commemorators read out the names of known victims of the massacre, and mark their names on a street map of Beijing showing the places where most of these victims were killed or the hospitals to which their bodies were taken. Continue reading

Jared Genser: The Detention of Wu Zeheng

Washington — In recent years, using new laws targeting so-called “evil cults,” Chinese President Xi Jinping and his government have arrested, tried, convicted, and imprisoned a wide array of religious leaders viewed as a threat to the one-party system. In a stinging decision that has just been made public, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention decided the Chinese government’s detention of one such Buddhist leader Wu Zeheng is arbitrary and in violation of international law, urging his case be resolved. Wu, who had spoken out repeatedly against the Chinese government’s repression of religious practice, received a life sentence for his activities in October 2015. Continue reading

Tienchi Martin-Liao: Brave Man, Gao Zhisheng, Stands Up Against Chinese State Power

The censorship of human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng’s new prison memoir shows that the Chinese authorities are aware of the human rights atrocities that are being committed within the justice system.

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United States: Trump government policies discriminatory and a threat to freedom of expression

Demonstrators shout slogans during anti-Donald Trump immigration ban protests outside Terminal 4 at San Francisco International Airport in San Francisco, California, U.S., January 28, 2017. REUTERS/Kate Munsch

Demonstrators shout slogans during anti-Donald Trump immigration ban protests outside Terminal 4 at San Francisco International Airport in San Francisco, California, U.S., January 28, 2017. REUTERS/Kate Munsch

On 27 January the United States president Donald Trump signed an executive order announcing the suspension of the Unites States refugee program for at least 120 days and indefinitely for Syrian nationals. The executive order goes further to cut the total number of refugees of any nationality who can be resettled under the program; and ban entry to the Unites States of nationals from Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen for at least 90 days. Continue reading

BBC journalist questioned by US border agents, devices searched

New York, February 1, 2017–Customs and Border Protection officers should respect the rights of journalists to protect confidential information when subjecting international reporters to screening on their arrival to the U.S., the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. Continue reading

William Ide: UN Social Media Posts Removed in China After Backlash

The United Nations has removed two Lunar New Year posts on refugees and poverty from its social media site on China’s popular Weibo microblogging platform after the messages sparked strong backlash online. Continue reading