China's human rights record isn't just terrible: it's monstrous
China editor resigns over media censorship
The resignation form uploaded by Yu Shaolei said he could no longer "bear the surname" of the Communist Party
----------------------------------
A top journalist at a Chinese newspaper says he is resigning because of the authorities' control over the media.
Yu Shaolei, an editor at Southern Metropolis Daily, posted a resignation note online, saying he could no longer follow the Communist Party line.
He also uploaded a message wishing those responsible for censoring his social media account well.
Chinese media outlets are subject to censorship, with government control tightening in recent years.
Mr Yu, who edited the cultural section of the newspaper, posted a photo of his resignation form on his Sina Weibo microblog account on Monday evening.
Under the "reason for resignation" section, he wrote: "Unable to bear your surname".
This was a reference to Chinese President Xi Jinping's tour of state media outlets in February, when he said journalists must give absolute loyalty to the Communist Party, and "bear the surname of the Party".
Xi Jinping (right) has demanded loyalty from state-run media
-----------------------------
Mr Yu's post was quickly deleted, although a cached copy was still viewable on monitoring sites online.
He wrote: "I'm getting old, and my knees can't stand it after so many years [of kneeling]."
He added what appeared to be a tongue-in-cheek apology to the censors responsible for monitoring his social media account.
"To the person responsible for watching my weibo feed and notifying their superiors about what to delete, you can heave a sigh of relief now, apologies for causing you stress over the last few years, and I sincerely wish your career will head in a new direction."
Journalists detained
When approached by the BBC, Mr Yu said he did not wish to comment further, and that he had said everything he wanted to say on social media.
It is not known if he has received any admonishment from the authorities, the BBC's John Sudworth in Beijing reports.
A columnist at the same paper, Li Xin, who disappeared in mysterious circumstances in Thailand after claiming he had been forced to inform on fellow journalists, is now back in police custody in China, our correspondent adds.
And last month, a front-page editor at Southern Metropolis Daily was fired after the headlines on one of the newspaper's front pages, when combined with a headline from another story, allegedly contained a veiled criticism of the government's demand that media "bear the surname of the Party".
The words highlighted in red belonged to two separate headlines - but if read together, could say: "Media bears the Party's surname, their soul returns to the sea"
-------------------------------
In recent weeks, China detained more than 20 people following the publication of a letter calling on President Xi to resign on state-backed website Wujie News.
Those detained included journalists linked to the website, employees at a related technology company, and prominent columnist Jia Jia, who has since been released.
Two overseas Chinese dissidents also say their relatives have been detained in connection with the letter.
Wen Yunchao, who lives in the US, said he believed his parents and his brother had been detained because authorities were trying to pressure him to reveal information. But he told the BBC that he knew nothing about the letter.
Meanwhile, German-based writer Zhang Ping, also known by his penname Chang Ping, said three of his siblings had been detained and that Chinese police had demanded that he stop writing in German media.
Mr Zhang said he had written about the letter, but had no other connection to it.
Authorities in China said they were investigating Mr Zhang's relatives on suspicion of arson.
------------------------
SOURCE 1.
------------------------
The day Zhao Wei disappeared: how a young law graduate was caught in China's human rights dragnet
"They must be torturing her", says Zhao's mother as she desperately searches for the daughter who vanished seven months ago.
Zhao Wei, a legal assistant, has been detained in the recent crackdown on human rights lawyers in China. Photograph: Adam Dean for the Guardian
----------------------------
It was a warm summer’s day when Zhao Wei, a 23-year-old legal assistant, kissed her parents goodbye and set out in search of her dreams.
She left her small-town home in central China and headed east to the train station past a Communist party propaganda poster in which president Xi Jinping posed beside the slogan: “If the people have faith … the country will be strong”.
From there Zhao caught a bullet train to the Chinese capital where she planned to sit the national bar exam she hoped would pave the way for her to become a top human rights lawyer.
“She looked well,” her tearful mother, Zheng Ruixia, recalls of their final moments together, in May last year. “She was so happy when she got on that train.”
Seven months later the would-be lawyer’s dreams are in tatters.
Zhao Wei - who relatives and friends describe as a bubbly and kind-hearted young woman - is behind bars facing trial on political subversion charges that could see her jailed for the rest of her life.
And each day her grief-stricken mother sinks into her daughter’s unmade bed, her hands trembling and tears streaking her face as she leafs through family photo albums chronicling happier times.
The rest of the article is here.
---------------------------
(1) Beginning last year, China's government has carried out an unprecedented crackdown on the coutry's human rights lawyers, with 200 people detained in July 2015 (most were subsequently released).
-'European, US and Australian lawyers call for China to end rights crackdown'.
-'China Targeting Rights Lawyers in a Crackdown'.
(2) China consistently leads the world in executions.
-Amnesty International reported that China, in 2012, executed more people than the rest of the world combined.
-Another (more recent) article on this is here.
(3) China's ghost children: these are children who, in the eyes of the government, don't exist. Their limbo status is a result of China's (recently rescinded) one-child policy. This is an incredible number of people who can do almost nothing (e.g. go to school or college, travel, get a regular job), because they can never get the documents to prove they exist. China's policy also means that many parents have lost their only child, in a country where the care of children for their aged parents is traditionally so important in people's old age.
-'The ghost children: in the wake of China's one-child policy, a generation is lost'.
-'End of China's one-child policy comes tragically late for many'.
(4) Another consequence of China's one-child policy was forced abortions and the confiscation of children by the authorities.
-More on this here and here.
(5) The 2008 Olympics resulted in a sharp spike or increase in human rights abuses in China, including abuses of migrant construction workers in the country as well as the eviction of massive numbers of people without any compensation. After demolition, inhabitants were often "forced to relocate far from their communities and workplaces, with inadequate transportation networks adding significantly to their cost of living". (Source is here.)
-A 2008 document from Human Rights Watch on this is here.
-There is also concern about the fact that China is now one of two countries left (both have terrible human rights records) in the bid to obtain the 2022 Winter Olympics: 'Beinjing and Almaty contest Winter Olympics in human rights nightmare'.
(6) China annexed Tibet in 1950. (Source is here.) The human rights situation in Tibet is terrible, and led to 145 Tibetans self-immolating (i.e. burning themselves alive) as of 2009. (Source is here.)
-'Torture in Tibet'.
-'China must urgently address human rights violations in Tibet -UN senior official'.
(7) "China's Xinjiang province is the country's most westerly region, bordering on the former Soviet states of Central Asia, as well as several other states including Afghanistan, Russia, and Mongolia.
The largest ethnic group, the Muslim, Turkic-speaking Uighurs, has lived in China's shadow for centuries. The region has had an intermittent history of autonomy and occasional independence, but was finally brought under Chinese control in the 18th century." (Source is here.) Basically, the Uyghur are another people who are suffering Chinese oppression.
-'About Uyghurs' (at the Uyghur American Association).
-'2011: The Uyghur human rights year in review'.
-Another article is here.
(8) From the Peabody awards' website:
"Like a mystery novel with a devastating denouement, Leon Lee’s documentary starts with numbers that don’t add up and divines an unthinkable explanation. China had no organ-donation system until 2010, yet it’s now the one place in the world where a person can get a heart and lung transplant in less than a week. People flock there by the thousands, checkbooks in hand, to get new kidneys, lungs and livers. China insists executed prisoners are the source, but David Matas, David Kilgour and other human rights activists tell Lee that the country would have to be executing more than 10 times the number it officially reports to generate such a huge supply of compatible organs. Lee found sources inside China who say that the answer is that the harvesting of organs is the execution and that the victims are mostly prisoners of conscience, practitioners of Falun Gong, a persecuted spiritual movement whose goals include better health. Lee bolsters his case not only with interviews with doctors and nurses who describe taking organs from prisoners still alive but with simple telephone inquiries to Chinese hospitals where arranging a transplant seems only slightly more complicated than ordering takeout. For its exposé of highly profitable, monstrous system of forced organ donation, Human Harvest: China’s Illegal Organ Trade receives a Peabody Award." (SOURCE.) (Link to documentary's website is here.)
-Groups of Canadian doctors also testified on this to a committee of the Canadian parliament, transcript is here.
OP: I don't know if, given China's might, it is possible to use methods such as sanctions. OTOH, we have to take a stand against such egregious abuses, IMHO.
The resignation form uploaded by Yu Shaolei said he could no longer "bear the surname" of the Communist Party
----------------------------------
A top journalist at a Chinese newspaper says he is resigning because of the authorities' control over the media.
Yu Shaolei, an editor at Southern Metropolis Daily, posted a resignation note online, saying he could no longer follow the Communist Party line.
He also uploaded a message wishing those responsible for censoring his social media account well.
Chinese media outlets are subject to censorship, with government control tightening in recent years.
Mr Yu, who edited the cultural section of the newspaper, posted a photo of his resignation form on his Sina Weibo microblog account on Monday evening.
Under the "reason for resignation" section, he wrote: "Unable to bear your surname".
This was a reference to Chinese President Xi Jinping's tour of state media outlets in February, when he said journalists must give absolute loyalty to the Communist Party, and "bear the surname of the Party".
Xi Jinping (right) has demanded loyalty from state-run media
-----------------------------
Mr Yu's post was quickly deleted, although a cached copy was still viewable on monitoring sites online.
He wrote: "I'm getting old, and my knees can't stand it after so many years [of kneeling]."
He added what appeared to be a tongue-in-cheek apology to the censors responsible for monitoring his social media account.
"To the person responsible for watching my weibo feed and notifying their superiors about what to delete, you can heave a sigh of relief now, apologies for causing you stress over the last few years, and I sincerely wish your career will head in a new direction."
Journalists detained
When approached by the BBC, Mr Yu said he did not wish to comment further, and that he had said everything he wanted to say on social media.
It is not known if he has received any admonishment from the authorities, the BBC's John Sudworth in Beijing reports.
A columnist at the same paper, Li Xin, who disappeared in mysterious circumstances in Thailand after claiming he had been forced to inform on fellow journalists, is now back in police custody in China, our correspondent adds.
And last month, a front-page editor at Southern Metropolis Daily was fired after the headlines on one of the newspaper's front pages, when combined with a headline from another story, allegedly contained a veiled criticism of the government's demand that media "bear the surname of the Party".
The words highlighted in red belonged to two separate headlines - but if read together, could say: "Media bears the Party's surname, their soul returns to the sea"
-------------------------------
In recent weeks, China detained more than 20 people following the publication of a letter calling on President Xi to resign on state-backed website Wujie News.
Those detained included journalists linked to the website, employees at a related technology company, and prominent columnist Jia Jia, who has since been released.
Two overseas Chinese dissidents also say their relatives have been detained in connection with the letter.
Wen Yunchao, who lives in the US, said he believed his parents and his brother had been detained because authorities were trying to pressure him to reveal information. But he told the BBC that he knew nothing about the letter.
Meanwhile, German-based writer Zhang Ping, also known by his penname Chang Ping, said three of his siblings had been detained and that Chinese police had demanded that he stop writing in German media.
Mr Zhang said he had written about the letter, but had no other connection to it.
Authorities in China said they were investigating Mr Zhang's relatives on suspicion of arson.
------------------------
SOURCE 1.
------------------------
The day Zhao Wei disappeared: how a young law graduate was caught in China's human rights dragnet
"They must be torturing her", says Zhao's mother as she desperately searches for the daughter who vanished seven months ago.
Zhao Wei, a legal assistant, has been detained in the recent crackdown on human rights lawyers in China. Photograph: Adam Dean for the Guardian
----------------------------
It was a warm summer’s day when Zhao Wei, a 23-year-old legal assistant, kissed her parents goodbye and set out in search of her dreams.
She left her small-town home in central China and headed east to the train station past a Communist party propaganda poster in which president Xi Jinping posed beside the slogan: “If the people have faith … the country will be strong”.
From there Zhao caught a bullet train to the Chinese capital where she planned to sit the national bar exam she hoped would pave the way for her to become a top human rights lawyer.
“She looked well,” her tearful mother, Zheng Ruixia, recalls of their final moments together, in May last year. “She was so happy when she got on that train.”
Seven months later the would-be lawyer’s dreams are in tatters.
Zhao Wei - who relatives and friends describe as a bubbly and kind-hearted young woman - is behind bars facing trial on political subversion charges that could see her jailed for the rest of her life.
And each day her grief-stricken mother sinks into her daughter’s unmade bed, her hands trembling and tears streaking her face as she leafs through family photo albums chronicling happier times.
The rest of the article is here.
---------------------------
(1) Beginning last year, China's government has carried out an unprecedented crackdown on the coutry's human rights lawyers, with 200 people detained in July 2015 (most were subsequently released).
-'European, US and Australian lawyers call for China to end rights crackdown'.
-'China Targeting Rights Lawyers in a Crackdown'.
(2) China consistently leads the world in executions.
-Amnesty International reported that China, in 2012, executed more people than the rest of the world combined.
-Another (more recent) article on this is here.
(3) China's ghost children: these are children who, in the eyes of the government, don't exist. Their limbo status is a result of China's (recently rescinded) one-child policy. This is an incredible number of people who can do almost nothing (e.g. go to school or college, travel, get a regular job), because they can never get the documents to prove they exist. China's policy also means that many parents have lost their only child, in a country where the care of children for their aged parents is traditionally so important in people's old age.
-'The ghost children: in the wake of China's one-child policy, a generation is lost'.
-'End of China's one-child policy comes tragically late for many'.
(4) Another consequence of China's one-child policy was forced abortions and the confiscation of children by the authorities.
-More on this here and here.
(5) The 2008 Olympics resulted in a sharp spike or increase in human rights abuses in China, including abuses of migrant construction workers in the country as well as the eviction of massive numbers of people without any compensation. After demolition, inhabitants were often "forced to relocate far from their communities and workplaces, with inadequate transportation networks adding significantly to their cost of living". (Source is here.)
-A 2008 document from Human Rights Watch on this is here.
-There is also concern about the fact that China is now one of two countries left (both have terrible human rights records) in the bid to obtain the 2022 Winter Olympics: 'Beinjing and Almaty contest Winter Olympics in human rights nightmare'.
(6) China annexed Tibet in 1950. (Source is here.) The human rights situation in Tibet is terrible, and led to 145 Tibetans self-immolating (i.e. burning themselves alive) as of 2009. (Source is here.)
-'Torture in Tibet'.
-'China must urgently address human rights violations in Tibet -UN senior official'.
(7) "China's Xinjiang province is the country's most westerly region, bordering on the former Soviet states of Central Asia, as well as several other states including Afghanistan, Russia, and Mongolia.
The largest ethnic group, the Muslim, Turkic-speaking Uighurs, has lived in China's shadow for centuries. The region has had an intermittent history of autonomy and occasional independence, but was finally brought under Chinese control in the 18th century." (Source is here.) Basically, the Uyghur are another people who are suffering Chinese oppression.
-'About Uyghurs' (at the Uyghur American Association).
-'2011: The Uyghur human rights year in review'.
-Another article is here.
(8) From the Peabody awards' website:
"Like a mystery novel with a devastating denouement, Leon Lee’s documentary starts with numbers that don’t add up and divines an unthinkable explanation. China had no organ-donation system until 2010, yet it’s now the one place in the world where a person can get a heart and lung transplant in less than a week. People flock there by the thousands, checkbooks in hand, to get new kidneys, lungs and livers. China insists executed prisoners are the source, but David Matas, David Kilgour and other human rights activists tell Lee that the country would have to be executing more than 10 times the number it officially reports to generate such a huge supply of compatible organs. Lee found sources inside China who say that the answer is that the harvesting of organs is the execution and that the victims are mostly prisoners of conscience, practitioners of Falun Gong, a persecuted spiritual movement whose goals include better health. Lee bolsters his case not only with interviews with doctors and nurses who describe taking organs from prisoners still alive but with simple telephone inquiries to Chinese hospitals where arranging a transplant seems only slightly more complicated than ordering takeout. For its exposé of highly profitable, monstrous system of forced organ donation, Human Harvest: China’s Illegal Organ Trade receives a Peabody Award." (SOURCE.) (Link to documentary's website is here.)
-Groups of Canadian doctors also testified on this to a committee of the Canadian parliament, transcript is here.
OP: I don't know if, given China's might, it is possible to use methods such as sanctions. OTOH, we have to take a stand against such egregious abuses, IMHO.