SOH News

Edge on China 61 – Headlines from China

This week in the headlines from China, Is Bird flu on the move again?, Teachers forced to buy the daily communist Newspaper, and Reporters without borders banned from China.

In Hong Kong a wild heron has tested positive for the H5N1 bird flu virus, prompting authorities to close a bird reserve on the border with China on Friday.

Hong Kong’s Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department said the grey heron, a migratory species, was found sick on December 5th near the reserve. It later died and tests confirmed it was infected with the H5N1 avian influenza.

As a precaution the Mai Po Nature Reserve was closed to visitors for three weeks.

The incident has occurred a week after a 24-year-old Chinese man from eastern Jiangsu province died last week of bird flu in the first case in China since June.

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On Monday, the French human rights organization Commission Nationale Consultative des Droits de l’Homme will recognize Mo Shaoping with an award for defending human rights, democracy issues and speaking up for Falun Gong.

The Beijing based lawyer is being recognized for talking about human rights despite the Communist regime forbidding such reporting.

The French human rights organization tried to contact different media in China to run the story but were unsuccessful. Mr. Mo explained there is no independent media in China, and that all of it is controlled by the communist party.

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Local government officials in China’s Hubei province have invoked a new regulation on to all educational institutions requiring every teacher to buy the communist party’s daily newspaper.

This has caused great anger in the educational community who believe it is unnecessary propaganda and who are angry that they have to pay the cost of the paper.

Powerless to refuse the order, the teachers are looking to the community for support.

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Countless shows and performers have passed under the lights of the Great White Way—Broadway. But New Tang Dynasty Television’s (NTDTV) Holiday Wonders and Chinese New Year Splendor promise to be something completely unique.

Guimin Guan, a renowned tenor originally from mainland China, who performs in the shows, says that audiences have demanded more performances every year, in part because it is so unique.

Holiday Wonders features Chinese dance, music, and singing and is hosted bilingually in Chinese and English. The programming draws on the deep inner expression of Chinese classical dance. It also uses a combination of background scenery, costumes, and choreography to express ancient Chinese virtues of truthfulness, compassion, and pure beauty.

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On the eve of a debate in the European Parliament on the outcome of the EU-China human rights dialogue, leading Members of the European Parliament and human rights organisations stressed the fact that human rights and the Olympic Games cannot be separated.

In a compelling speech, Vice-President of the European Parliament, Edward McMillan-Scott, referenced Article 1 of the Olympic Charter which clearly states that the Olympic Games must be based on ‘fundamental universal ethical principles’.”

Willy Fautre, Director of Human Rights without Frontiers, also cited China’s atrocious human rights record explaining that many thousands of human rights defenders are still detained by the Chinese authorities in addition to the continued persecution of religious minorities and the 8-10,000 executions carried out by the regime each year.

The panel called for MEPs to use their position as elected representatives to urge National Olympic Committees to inform their athletes as to the real human rights situation in China, so as to prevent a repeat of 1936, when sportsmen returning from the Berlin Games said that if they had known about the existence of concentration camps they never would have participated.

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Recent news from Shandong Province revealed on the 7th December, 50 policemen raided a Bible study at a family Church group in Lin Ting City.

The police accused them of illegal gathering, and violently handcuffed all attendees before escorting them to the Police station for interrogation and torture.

More than sixty remain in police custody. China Aid Associate pointed out these actions of the government should be displayed as the host of the 2008 Olympics.

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December 10 marked the 59th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Amnesty International and the Human Rights China Network that comprised of Ten Human Rights organizations, including Democratic China Alliance, Falun Dafa Human Rights Association, Tibetan and Uighur groups, held a press conference outside the Toronto office of the Olympics Committee.

A representative from Amnesty International expressed, influences from the International Olympics Committee would be sufficient to make China improve its human rights records.

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Apparently fed up with hearing criticism over its lack of media transparency, Chinese authorities this week banned representatives of press freedom organization Reporters Without Borders from entering the country.

Reporters Without Borders was planning to hold a press conference in Beijing on December the 8th to decry Chinese authorities’ failure to improve freedom of the press. They were denied visas to enter the country, and instead held the press event in Hong Kong.

China is currently the world’s leading jailer of journalists, bloggers and other cyber-dissidents. Reporters Without Borders knows of 33 journalist’s currently imprisoned and at least 49 cyber-dissidents, most of who are detained in appalling conditions. At least three Epoch Times reporters are in prison in China today.

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A Tibetan human rights group headquartered in London expressed that the Communist regime has strengthened its suppression on Tibetan religious region.

Meanwhile, the Amnesty International Human Rights Organization pleaded to the International Olympic Committee urging China to improve its human rights record.

A report by Voice of America revealed on the12th December that the regime further suppresses the Tibetan Buddhist monks and nuns by coercing them take exams to testify their sincerity towards the Beijing government but not to Dalai Lama.

According to the monks and nuns, the fund pooled by practitioners to maintain the monasteries had been removed by the Communist regime.

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It’s been reported that tickets for next year’s Olympic Games in China are being sold illegally on the internet.

Individuals who were initially allowed to buy 50 tickets each are cashing in by selling them for more than 10 times their face value.
Beijing’s Olympic Committee allows tickets to be transferred between users, but not for profit.

The second round of ticket sales has just been launched, and applicants will be randomly allocated seats.