SOH News

Edge on China 53 – Headlines from China

In this Bulletin

Dalai Lama recieves the Congressioal Gold Medal, The Human Rights Torch Relay arrives in Gothenburg Sweden, and Mass Rallies in Hong Kong.

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China should view the Dalai Lama’s high-profile visit to Washington next week as a chance to listen to the exiled Buddhist spiritual leader who Beijing shuns as a Tibetan separatist, his envoy said Friday.

Despite fierce Chinese lobbying, the Dalai Lama will receive the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honor that Congress can bestow, on Wednesday after being hosted at the White House by President Bush the day before.

The award ceremony at the Capitol will be the first time Bush will have appeared in public with the Dalai Lama, who has visited the White House only for private meetings.

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The Human Rights Torch Relay completed another leg, arriving in Gothenberg, Sweden where it was greeted by Members of Parliament representing all major political parties in Sweden.

The torch represents the hope of concerned citizens around the globe that the Chinese people will be granted the human rights guaranteed by the Chinese Constitution and belonging to every human being.

The message of the Torch appealed to Olympic medalist in sailing 1964 and 1972, Pelle Pettersson who participated in the event.
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As three months of consultation on political reform in Hong Kong ended on Wednesday, pro-democracy campaigners began holding a mass rally demanding the right to elect the territory’s highest official and legislature by 2012.

Presently, the chief executive of the independent state is chosen by a panel of 800 selectors, many of whom heavily favour Beijing, and only half of the legislature is directly elected.

Thousands of people gathered in Victoria Park where they took part in a mass unfurling of yellow or blue umbrellas, to form the shape 2012, the earliest possible date for universal suffrage to be introduced.

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On the tenth of October, Jia-Mu-Si, the procurator of Heilongjiang Province, confirmed the case of Yang Chun-Lin’s that he was sent by the Municipal Police Bureau on the eighth of October.

Human rights defender, Yang Chun-Lin said that “Human Rights Comes before the Olympics”. He helped forty thousand farmers, whose lands were confiscated by the government in the course of defending their basic rights over the period of a decade or more.

He also spent half a year, having collected signatures of tens of thousands of farmers on the petition.

The local police authority went to harass another representative at home for two consecutive days, Wang Gui-Lin, who acts for the lost-land farmers, was accused of being involved in Falun Gong, and they threatened to ‘reform’ him through hard labour.

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In a show of strength aimed at China, Taiwan has marked its national day with a military parade for the first time in 16 years.

Fighter planes flew above the capital, Taipei, and 2,000 troops showed off military hardware through the city.

President Chen Shui-bian used a speech to hit out at China’s “relentless military build-up”, labelling it as a threat to world peace.

China regards Taiwan as a renegade province that should be reunified.
Beijing has threatened to use force if Taiwan declares formal independence.

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Police in Fushun City in China attempted on Monday night to arrest three individuals who had applied to take part in a singing competition to be held in the United States.

None of the three happened to be home at the time, and thus escaped arrest.

The timing of the arrest seems to have been chosen in order to prevent the three from returning to the U.S. Consulate in Shenyang City to pick up visas they had applied for.

The three singers had planned to compete in the International Chinese Vocal Competition, which is sponsored by New Tang Dynasty Television (NTDTV).

The competition is scheduled to begin on Oct. 15 in New York City.

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More than a hundred people including lawyers, scholars and human right advocates signed an open letter on October 9th to the central Chinese government regarding human rights lawyer Li He Ping who was abducted and beaten.

The letter urges the central government to pay serious attention to this incident and to prohibit government agencies from abducting and beating lawyers and human rights advocates.

Li He Ping was beaten for four to five hours straight and was tortured by high voltage electric batons.

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Recently the Ministry of the Coalition publicized an article at an overseas news website, revealing the most glaring infamous scandal in the history of stock market of the Communist regime.

It involved billions of dollars by a sinister gang controlling the stock market in Zhaogu Right Case, directly targeting at Jiang Ze-Min, Jiao Qing-Lin, Huang Ju, Wu Zhi-Ming and Yu Zheng-Sheng.

An independent analysis says that the exposure of the scandal by the Ministry of Coalition of the regime before the seventeenth Party Congress impacts heavily on the corrupted Jiang’s clans.

More news from Mainland China revealed that the condemning voices from within the Party, calling for the incarceration of Jiang Ze-Min and his clans, become more deafening.

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More than a thousand residents blocked the Nan Sha Bridge again, demanding the local Chinese Communist Government give an explanation as to why they had been secretly selling their land.

The local government planned to explain the deal on October 8th, but the head of the government cancelled the meeting.

More than a thousand people blocked the Nan Sha Bridge from 10:00 o’clock in the morning until 7:00 o’clock at night.

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Twelve thousand Chinese petitioners have sent an open letter to their government calling for urgent democratic reform.

As China prepares for next week’s Communist Party Congress, 12,000 people have reportedly drafted an open letter to the Government demanding widespread reform.

The five-yearly Congress, which opens on Monday, is certain to reinstall President Hu Jintao for another term.

It is also expected to strengthen his power, as Mr Hu promotes his own supporters to key positions.

But the petitioners want more from the Congress.

They have called for an end to illegal land grabs, the creation of an independent judiciary and freedom of the press.

The signatures are said to be mostly from disaffected citizens living in rural and regional areas

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A volunteer of China’s democratic movement and human rights activist, Yan Chunglin is being brutally tortured during his detention in prison, according to his lawyer.

Like many human rights activists, prisoners of conscience, and Falun Gong practitioners, Yang was arrested for advocating ideals contrary to Communist Party doctrine and sent to one of China’s notorious reformation prisons, where he is apparently being subjected to torture and other reformation techniques on a daily basis.

Former inmates have explained that authorities use a variety of torture methods to ‘break the will’ of the activists so they will reform to Communist Party ideologies.

Yang’s case is another reminder to the international community that China’s human rights record is far below that of other developing nations.

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Although it has been a number of years since AIDS was a forbidden topic in China, a recent report on Voice of America disclosed contents of a letter explaining how authorities in China still impose stringent controls over release of AIDS related information.

The Voice of America station went on to establish a forum which will further investigate media control by Chinese Authorities over such topics.

However, it is feared the forum will also be regulated like a number of similar forums which, over the last 3 years had been forcibly closed down with much valuable data being confiscated.