Breaking News – Chinese communist regimes steps up oppression of human rights activists ahead of the Beijing Olympics
Ahead of the Beijing Olympics in August, the Chinese Communist Party has not only failed to fulfil its promise to improve human rights in China, it has strengthened its oppression and surveillance of human rights. Dissidents are subject to detention, stalking and monitoring in a bid by the CCP to prevent events during the Olympics which may cause the regime to “lose face”.
Recently, a SOH reporter interviewed Tan Langying, a human rights activist in Shanghai. She says that the CCP is telling the world it has human rights, but does the world now know whether human rights really exist in China. In fact it doesn’t. She gave the example of the Olympics Torch relay currently underway in China and said she was under house arrest for 4 days, as I said we want human rights and not the Olympics. The Olympic Games only caused despair for our broken up families.
Another activist Shen Dongmei is also treated by Shanghai officials as an “sensitive” person. Officials sent warnings to Shen to not leave home during the Shanghai leg of the Olympic torch relay. Shen said that from May 19, the regional government summoned me to address the issue, I went there and within 30 minutes I was detained by them. I was only released on May 25.
During this sensitive period of the Olympic Games, human rights activists and petitioners are all under close surveillance by the CCP. At the end of May, over 40 activists sent a joint open letter to the Chief of the International Olympics Committee. The letter described that despite voluntary donations by hundreds of human rights activists after the May 12 earthquake disaster, these activists were nonetheless subjected to threats and harassment by plain clothes police and spies.
The above news is brought to you by Wu Jiaqi, Li Yuhan and Chris Thomas for Breaking News on the SOH Radio Network.
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