A week after the China-Google fracas, Human Rights Watch is accusing industry behemoth Microsoft of downplaying China’s cyber-censorship.
Recent public statements by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and founder/chairman Bill Gates appear to contradict the company’s official statement of opposition to such censorship and minimize or even support online censorship in China, it said. Continue reading »
Jan 282010
Nov 052009
WASHINGTON—Six Uyghur ex-detainees from Guantanamo Bay and now living on a remote Pacific island are upset they cannot phone their families in China.
In an interview with RFA the men said the Chinese Government has cut off most communication with their home in the northwestern Chinese region of Xinjiang. It has been the site of recent unrest.
“We haven’t been able to talk to our family members yet,” Anwar Hasan said in a telephone interview from the Pacific island nation of Palau, where he was transferred with five other Uyghur men after spending nearly eight years behind bars.
The men who were released form US custody without charge said they were fleeing religious persecution in China when they were mistaken for extremists and picked up in Afghanistan.
Oct 292009
Getting news out of Tibet remains extraordinarily difficult since the March 2008 uprising that rattled Chinese authorities on the eve of last year’s Beijing Olympics. But now a number of sources are reporting that at least three people have been executed for their roles in the unrest. They would be the first people executed in Tibet in connection with the uprising.
This latest news came from Tibetan exile groups and local sources, and the Chinese authorities so far haven’t said a word. One of the men executed was identified as Lobsang Gyaltsen, age 22 or 23, from Lhasa’s Lubuk township. He was reportedly allowed a last visit from his mother where he asked her to make sure his son was received an education.
A spokesman for an exile group identified the other two people executed as a young woman and a Tibetan youth from Amdo Aba in Sichuan province.
Another source said,“I got information from Lhasa that three Tibetans who were involved in the 2008 protests were executed on Oct. 20, in Lhasa, around 11 a.m.. The Chinese authorities execute Tibetans in secrecy and never reveal details.”
Rioting rocked Lhasa in March last year and spread to Tibetan-dominated regions of western China, causing official embarrassment ahead of the August 2008 Beijing Olympics. Officials say 21 people—including three Tibetan protesters—died in the violence.
Last Thursday, the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) released a report saying at least 670 Tibetans have been jailed in 2009 for activities that include peaceful protest or leaking information abroad. It qualified the number saying it was “a figure certain to be incomplete”
The report says the crackdown concentrated on Tibetan communities, monasteries, nunneries, schools, and workplaces. It noted “security measures intensified in some Tibetan areas” during the 2009 anniversaries of the protests.
By the end of April 2009, TAR courts had sentenced 84 Tibetans to punishments ranging from fixed jail terms to life, as well as to death or death with a two-year reprieve, in connection with the 2008 riots, the CECC report said.
It also detailed a widespread “patriotic education” campaign that requires monks and nuns to pass examinations on political texts, agree that Tibet is historically a part of China, and denounce the Dalai Lama.
“The government has in the past year used institutional, educational, legal and propaganda channels to pressure Tibetan Buddhists to modify their religious views and aspirations.”
Amnesty International says it has documented “a pattern of unfair trials, including a failure on the part of the Chinese authorities to distinguish between individuals engaged in peaceful protests and those perpetrating criminal acts.
Tibetans say the official media never report on executions in Tibet—but they do cover capital punishment and criminal trials in the case of ethnic Uyghurs, who had their own violent run-ins with the authorities earlier this year
Sep 242008
Thanks to Danwei for this link.
First clip (woman): “As the child’s step-mother, you are going to need Sanlu milk powder. It is guaranteed to contain kidney stones. I know I can rely on it!”
Second clip (boy and mother): “We have never tasted milk like this before. The kidney stones really make a difference!” Continue reading »
Bao Tong at his Beijing home, April 2008. Photo: RFA
鲍彤：金牌
一定很多，不可乐而忘忧
替北京奥运算命之一
Fortune-telling for the Olympics
I see many gold medals but no carefree atmosphere…
Bao Tong
北京快办奥运，结局将会如何？
What kind of a Games can we expect in Beijing?
我不想预测中国奖牌的总数。奥运属于地球村。在某些国家里，国家的价值和作用，常常被无限放大。但奥运是和平，是友谊，是人与人互相学习的学校，不是国家与国家 “较劲”的舞台。把金牌数目，当作“国家崛起”的筹码，是幼稚的。 “国家至上”可以和慈禧太后或者义和团之类相匹配，不能体现奥运精神。尤其是主办国，一旦掉进“我国至上”的泥潭，就会在道义上丧失东道主的资格。我国的运动员和教练员，勤劳辛苦，这次奥运会，一定会得很多金牌银牌铜牌，但奖牌再多，不应该成为乐而亡忧的理由。 Continue reading »
Jul 082008
So who has the power to “deploy police force” whenever they want to? It certainly isn’t ordinary Chinese people, nor is it a democratically elected government. It is a pack of bureaucrats nominated by the Communist Party, whose names have been picked out of a mechanical “election” process, who have been given a franchise on state power; with no competition.
– Bao Tong on the Guizhou unrest
2008-07-05
鲍彤评论：贵州省委书记一篇有普遍意义的讲话
On a remark by the Guizhou provincial Party secretary that merits everyone’s attention
by Bao Tong
瓮安县最近出了人命，案情离奇，众说纷纭。我也是一个”不明真相”的人，越听越糊涂。但是，贵州省委书记石先生7月3日的一席话，我听懂了。
Recently, a person died in Weng’an county. The details of the case are unclear, and many different versions are floating around. I too am one of those who don’t know what really happened. The more I hear, the more confused I become. But I did understand one thing, and that was a comment made on July 3 by Mr Shi, the Guizhou provincial Party secretary.
他的话，被公布出来的虽然只有寥寥几段，但是有重量，有深度，切合实际，对整个中国，有普遍意义。
Only a few fragments of his comments were actually reported, but those that were carry great depth and weight, striking close to the heart of the matter, and are worthy of the attention of the entire nation. Continue reading »
Video: Two students in a dormitory room at the University of Chengdu, the provincial capital of Sichuan, record their experience during the quake and post it to Tudou.com, a Chinese equivalent of YouTube. It is later reposted on YouTube.
A resident of Dujiangyan who helped to rescue people caught in the collapse of a secondary school building said. “The building is three storeys high, with 18 classrooms. All of the sudden the building collapsed. Many people have died. The People’s Liberation Army are rescuing those trapped under the rubble. Such a terrible tragedy. Many parents are having to wait here for news.” Continue reading »
May 132008
From Mandarin service reporter Qiao Long:
The Tibetan government-in-exile completely lost contact with Tibetans living in Ngaba, Gansu (in Chinese, Aba) after the earthquake, without any news emerging about the situation in local monasteries and nunneries. Ge Sang, an officer with the exiled government said: “We completely lost contact with them. As communications have been paralyzed, there isn’t any information coming from there.”
The earthquake has captured the attention of Tibetan monks in China. Monks at the Drepung monastery in Lhasa are planning a prayer ritual on Wednesday to pray for peace for people in the tremor-hit areas. Continue reading »
May 032008
This is a continuation of an RFA Mandarin service report from Wei Si:
The monks in the lamasery in Daofu county, Sichuan province, also tell us that a group of reporters arrived a few days ago, but were turned away by Chinese security forces who were guarding the gates. Such incidents have become commonplace since the Tibetan anti-Chinese protests which began on March the 14th in Lhasa, they say. Continue reading »
China: Interview with released journalist Ching Cheong
From RFA Mandarin reporter Xin Yu:
Q: Mr. Ching, we learned that after you returned to Hong Kong, you are still working as a journalist for the Strait Times of Singapore. What do you feel about it?
A: I feel happy and am in high mood because I have been a journalist for my whole life. Now I’ve got the opportunity to resume my old profession, I am happy. Continue reading »