21.01.2007
C.C.C.C. or C4
Communist Chinese Colonialist’s Cruelties
by_ MAHA BANDULA
Communist China makes little distinction between separatists, terrorists, and civil rights activists – whether they are Uyghurs, Tibetans, Taiwanese, or Falun Gong Buddhists, but crushed ruthlessly. Chinese authorities are concerned that increasing international attention to the treatment of its minority and dissident peoples have put pressure on the region, with the US and many Western governments continuing to criticize China for not adhering to its commitments to signed international agreements and human rights.
Last year China ratified the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. Article One of the covenant says: “All peoples have the right of self-determination. By virtue of that right they freely determine their political status and freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development.”
Although China continues to quibble with the definition of “people”, it is clear that the agreements are pressuring China to answer criticisms by UN Human Right Special Rapporteur Mary Robinson and other high-ranking human rights advocates about its treatment of minority peoples. Beijing appeared fearful that censuring Myanmar would set a threatening precedent for an expanded Security Council role in human rights matters -- of which Communist Party-ruled China has plenty.
The Constitution of the People's Republic of China guarantees freedom of speech, freedom of the press, the right to a fair trial, freedom of religion, universal suffrage, and property rights. However, censorship of political speech and information is openly and routinely used to protect what the government considers national security interests. The government has a policy of suppressing most protests and organizations that it considers a threat to social stability and national unity, as was the case with the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.
In Reporters Without Borders' Annual World Press Freedom Index of 2005, the PRC or China ranked 159 out of 167 places. This is an indication that Reporters Without Borders considers the PRC one of the countries in the world with the strictest media control.
China is a big bully in the whole world. We need to support TAIWAN as a revenge to their support for SPDC in UNSC. Those Chinese Communists never even own or rule the Republic of China, commonly known as "Chinese Taipei" or "Taiwan", for even one second. Communist China fought but fails to completely wipe out the Democratic Chiang Kai-shek’s Kuomintang rulers (Chinese Nationalist Party or KMT). The ROC administration, led by Chiang Kai-shek, had already announced on October 25, 1945, as "Taiwan Restoration Day". In 1949 only, on losing the Chinese Civil War to the CPC (Communist Party of China), the KMT, led by Chiang Kai-shek, retreated from Mainland China and moved the ROC government to Taipei, Taiwan's largest city. On the mainland, the Communists established the PRC, shamelessly claiming to be the sole representative of China including Taiwan and portraying the ROC government on Taiwan as an illegitimate entity. Some 1.3 million refugees from Mainland China, consisting mainly of soldiers, KMT party members, and most importantly the intellectual and business elites from the mainland, arrived in Taiwan around that time. In addition, as part of its retreat to Taiwan, the KMT brought with them literally the entire gold reserve and foreign currency reserve of mainland China. This unprecedented influx of human and monetary capital laid the foundation for Taiwan's later dramatic economic development. From this period on, Taiwan has existed as a seperate soverign progressive country transforming slowly to become a democratic country nowadays. Nevertheless, the Communist Chinese bullied the whole world including all the superpowers and even the UN to accept the one China policy.
During ancient Chinese rule Ordinary Mongols were not allowed to travel outside their own leagues. While there had been Han Chinese farmers in what is now Inner Mongolia since the time of Altan Khan, mass settlement began in the late nineteenth century. There are groups calling for the independence of Inner Mongolia from what they view as Chinese imperialism; these groups, however, have less influence and support within and outside Inner Mongolia than similar movements in Tibet, Xinjiang, and Taiwan.
In 1950, the Chinese People's Liberation Army entered the Tibetan area of Chamdo, crushing minimal resistance from the ill-equipped Tibetan army. In 1951 only, the Seventeen Point Agreement for the Peaceful Liberation of Tibet was forced upon representatives of the Dalai Lama by the PLA's military, and Beijing affirmed Chinese sovereignty over Tibet. As a result, a rebellion broke out in Amdo and eastern Kham in June of 1956 and eventually spread to Lhasa. During this campaign, tens of thousands of Tibetans were killed. The 14th Dalai Lama and other government principals fled to exile in India, but isolated resistance continued in Tibet until 1969. Dalai Lama has fled to India after the failed Tibetan uprising in 1959, and established him as the traditional head of the Tibetan government.
During the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese Red Guards inflicted a campaign of organized vandalism against cultural sites in the entire PRC, including Tibet's Buddhist heritage. Of the several thousand monasteries in Tibet, over 6,500 were destroyed, only a handful remained without major damage, and hundreds of thousands of Buddhist monks and nuns were killed or imprisoned. Tibetan exiles state that the number that have died in the much unwanted Great Leap Forward, of violence, or other indirect causes since 1950 is approximately 1.2 million
Dalai Lama has stated his willingness to negotiate with China for "genuine
autonomy". The Dalai Lama sees the millions of Han immigrants, attracted to the
TAR by economic incentives and preferential socioeconomic policies, as
presenting an urgent threat to the Tibetan nation by diluting the Tibetans both
culturally and through intermarriage.
Chinese
authorities view the Dalai Lama, in exile in India since 1959, as the linchpin
of the effort to separate Tibet from China and view Tibetan Buddhist belief as
supportive of his efforts. Suspected ‘separatists,’ many of whom come from
monasteries and nunneries, are routinely imprisoned. In January 2006, Gendun, a
Tibetan monk, received a four-year prison sentence for opinions expressed in his
lectures on Tibetan history and culture. In June 2006, five Tibetans, including
two nuns, were detained for publishing and distributing independence leaflets.
In July, Namkha Gyaltsen, a monk, received an eight-year sentence for his
independence activities. In August, armed police detained Khenpo Jinpa, an
abbot. In September, Lobsang Palden, another monk, was charged with ‘initiating
separatist activities.’
On September 30, Chinese People’s Armed Police shot at a group of approximately
40 Tibetan refugees attempting to cross the border into Nepal, killing a
17-year-old nun, Kelsang Namtso, and possibly others. The rest of the group
fled, though witnesses reported seeing Chinese soldiers marching approximately
10 children back to a nearby camp. The official press agency Xinhua claimed that
the soldiers were ‘forced to defend themselves,’ but film footage showed
soldiers calmly taking aim and shooting from afar at a column of people making
their way through heavy snow.
In China, many Muslims are Huis and some are Hans. Islam arrived China through the 'Silk Road', a transcontinental passage from Turkey in Europe across Asia right into Sin-kiang (Xinjiang) province of northwestern China, the homeland of the Huis. The word 'Hui' is actually an abbreviation derived from three Chinese characters pronounced as 'Hui vu er' which means Huighur or Uighur; the name of a nomadic tribesmen. The Huis; the collective name for the various tribesmen such as Huighurs, Kazaks, Salars, Tajiks, Tatars etc, lived along the Chinese-Russian border and beside the 'Silk Road' in Sinkiang Province of China which the westerners refer it as Eastern Turkistan.
The historical records of the arrival of Islam in China varies with dates ranging from 571 A.D. during the Sui Dynasty to 651 A.D. the Tang Dynasty. According to a Muslim legend, Islam was first preached in China as early as the Sui Dynasty by a maternal uncle of the Prophet for his reputed tomb at Canton is highly venerated by Muslims there until now.
Uyghur is a Turkic language spoken by the Uyghur people in Xinjiang (also called East Turkestan or Uyghurstan), formerly also “Sinkiang” and “Chinese Turkestan,” a Central Asian region administered by China. Xinjiang is the largest political subdivision of China - it accounts for more than one sixth of China's total territory and a quarter of its boundary length. Xinjiang is home to several Muslim Turkic groups including the Uyghurs and the Kazakhs.
The percentage of ethnic Han Chinese in Xinjiang has grown from 6 percent in 1949 to an official tally of over 40 percent at present. This figure does not include military personnel or their families, or the many unregistered migrant workers. Much of this transformation can be attributed to the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), a semi-military organization of settlers that has built farms, towns, and cities over scattered parts of Xinjiang. The demographic transformation is held by Uyghur independence advocates as a threat to Uyghurs and other non-Han ethnicities in maintaining their culture, similar to the case of Tibet.
The capital is Ürümqi. Inhabited since early times by nomad tribes, it is an area of rugged mountains and desert basins. It was successively subject to the Tibetans, Uighurs, and Arabs and was conquered by Genghis Khan in the 13th century. Again under Chinese rule during the Manchu dynasty, it was established as Xinjiang province c. 1884. It came under Chinese communist rule in 1949 without a struggle, but there was a Uigur uprising in Hotan in 1954.
In the 1990s, the Turkic peoples of Xinjiang grew increasingly discontented with Chinese rule, and rioting by pro-independence Muslims broke out in 1997. China instituted a harsh crackdown on political dissent and Turkic separatists. Orthodox Islamic practices have been discouraged or suppressed by the government for fear that they will become a focus of Uigur nationalism.
Abdurixit said that clashes between Chinese security forces and Uighur separatists on February 5 and 6 in the border town of Yining were sparked "by illegal demonstrations." "These very violent demonstrators cried out for an Islamic kingdom," the governor said. The clashes left 10 to 100 people killed, according to reports, and at least three others were executed for their role in the uprising.
The indigenous population of Xinjiang has resisted Chinese rule for centuries, but the arrival of Han-majority settlers in large numbers since China re-took control of the region in 1950 has exacerbated tensions. A short-lived independent state called East Turkestan had been established in the region during the chaos of China's civil war. Authorities have suppressed separatist activities by cracking down on the practice of religion -- seen in Beijing as a force behind pro-independence sentiment. After denying the problem for decades Communist China has recently detailed as terrorist activities in the regions known as “Eastern Turkestan,” officially known as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. In the northwestern Uyghur Autonomous Region of Xinjiang, China’s Foreign Ministry and the People’s Daily have documented an on-going series of incidents of terrorism and separatism since the large riot in the Xinjiang town of Yining of February 1997, with multiple crackdowns and arrests that have rounded up thousands of terrorist suspects, large weapons caches, and printed documents allegedly outlining future public acts of violence.
Amnesty International has claimed that these round-ups have led to hurried public trials and immediate, summary executions of possibly thousands of locals. One estimate suggested that in a country known for its frequent executions, Xinjiang had the highest number, averaging 1.8 per week, most of them Uyghur. Troop movements to the area, related to the nationwide campaign against crime known as "Strike Hard" launched in 1998 that includes the call to erect a "great wall of steel" against separatists in Xinjiang, have reportedly been the largest since the suppression of the large Akto insurrection in April 1990. International campaigns for Uyghur rights and possible independence have become increasingly vocal and well organized, especially on the internet. Repeated public appeals have been made to Abdulahat Abdurixit, the Uyghur People's Government Chairman of Xinjiang in Urumqi.
Notably, the elected chair of the Unrepresented Nations and People's Organization (UNPO) based in the Hague is a Uyghur, Erkin Alptekin, son of the separatist leader, Isa Yusuf Alptekin, who is buried in Istanbul where there is a park. There are at least 25 international organizations and web sites working for the independence of “Eastern Turkestan,” and based in Amsterdam, Munich, Istanbul, Melbourne, Washington, DC and New York. There are 7 other official Muslim minorities in Xinjiang, including 1 million Kazakhs and 500,000 Hui, as well as Kyrgyz, Uzbek, Tajik, and others.
Many local activists are calling not for complete separatism or real independence, but generally
express concerns over environmental degradation, anti-nuclear testing, religious freedom,
over-taxation, and recently imposed limits on childbearing. Many ethnic leaders are simply calling for "real" autonomy according to Chinese law for the five Autonomous Regions that are each led by First Party Secretaries who are all Han Chinese controlled by Beijing.
Freedom of Religion, protected by China’s constitution, does not seem to be a key issue, as mosques are full in the region and pilgrimages to Mecca are often allowed for Uyghur and other Muslims but there is an increase in restrictions against mosque attendance by youth, students, and government officials.
The Chinese government has consistently rounded up any Uyghur suspected of being “too” religious, especially those identified as Sufis or the so-called Wahabbis. In 2006, China intensified its efforts to use the ‘war on terrorism’ to justify its policies to eradicate the ‘three evil forces’, terrorism, separatism, and religious extremism, allegedly prevalent among Uighurs, a Turkic-speaking Muslim population in China’s Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region. Under current policies, local imams are required to vet the text of weekly Friday sermons with religious bureaus. ‘Strike Hard’ campaigns subject Uighurs who express ‘separatist’ tendencies to quick, secret, and summary trials, sometimes accompanied by mass sentencing rallies. Imposition of the death penalty is common. Chinese officials have labeled Rebiya Kadeer, a Nobel Prize nominee, a terrorist, and in retaliation for her championing of Uighur rights following her exile to the US in March 2005, have beaten and arrested members of her family in Xinjiang. In October 2006 two of her sons, Kahar Abdureyim, 42, and Alim Abdureyim, 31, were put on trial on tax charges.
Western historians also stressed that thousands of Muslims had already rushed into China by the 'Silk Road' in 751 AD, after the Tang Empire lost Central Asia to the Abbasids in the war at Taraz. The Tang emperor seek help from Samarkand (Samarkand was Timur's royal city, celebrated its 2500th anniversary in 1970. It is an ancient site, located in modern-day Uzbekistan.) and Abbasid soldiers to crush the revolt of his general Ann Lu-shan of Turkey origin. All these Muslim soldiers were allowed to stay back in Sin-kiang after winning the war. These events happened during the sixth emperor of Tang, i.e. two hundred years after the Arab-Muslims settled down in Canton, Chuanahou, Hangzhou, Yangzhou, Emgzhou and other southern cities of China and developed good relationships with the Hans.
In 1270 AD Sayyid Edjill Chams Ed-Din Omar was made the governor of Yunan Province in southern China. During the Yuan Dynasty 1279 AD - 1368 AD, after Genghis Khan conquered the whole of Asia and part of Europe; as far as the plain of Hungary, he returned with his multiracial military hordes of Turks, Persians, Babylonians Syrians and other middle-east mercenary soldiers to China.
During the Ming Dynasty 1368 AD-1644 AD, Islam flourished because its first emperor Chu Hoong-vu was believed to be a Muslim himself. There are several distinguish features to support this claim such as: _
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His empress was a well known Muslim as stated in the Chinese history;
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All his daily food and drinks were under strict supervision and scrutinized by the empress her-self. In other words, he ate only halal meals;
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He wrote a 'One Hundred Words Praise' poem in Chinese to honour the Prophet. He was the first and only emperor in China to have written such an inscription while the calligraphy of the poem was carved on a wooden board carefully preserved in the Nanking Masjid until now; and he entrusted the life of his son to a Muslim warrior Cheng Ho.
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He assigned that young Muslim soldier, Muhammad Cheng Ho to protect his prince, the heir to his throne. When this prince succeeded him to be the second Ming emperor, he promoted this faithful bodyguard to the rank of Admiral and sent him set to the sacred land Makkah and south east Asia for seven times.
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Each time Admiral Cheng Ho led a fleet of about one hundred ocean-bond vessels carrying more than twenty-five thousand soldiers and sailors. Its flagship alone was fifty feet wide, four hundred feet long weighing one thousand five hundred tons. (This fleet when estimated at that time is comparable with the Seventh Fleet of the United States of America at present).
6. But the Chinese historians named him as 'Eunuch Sam Poh' sarcastically or may be mistakenly due to the fact that he was circumcised during childhood, and others take for granted that he was castrated. He joined the army since young and fought and served his way up from an ordinary soldier to the imperial guard and at last became the famous 'Admiral Cheng Ho'. He took charge of the greatest expedition of that era, sailed half way round the world to as far as the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa eighty years before Columbus accidentally discovered America.
Starting from 1855 the Muslim majority of Yunnan had risen against the oppression by the mandarins who practised the tyranny and extortion. The mandarins provoked anti-Muslim riots and instigated the destruction of the mosques. (Anderson,1876,233). The widespread Chinese Muslim’s desire for revenge for insults to their religion led to a revolt. The rebellion started as a local uprising. It was sparked off by the Panthay labourers of the silver mines of Lin-an hsien village in Yunnan against their Chinese overseers. The Chinese Governor of Yunnan sent an urgent appeal to the central government at Peking (Beijing) and then committed suicide. The Panthays, under the able leadership of Tu Wen-hsiu or Dowinsheow, turned their fury on the local mandarins and ended up with challenging the central government at Peking.
The Panthays won one victory after another in the initial phases of' the rebellion. They wrested one important city after another from Mandarins. (Anderson, 1876, 233).The ancient holy city of Tali-fu fell to the Panthays in 1857. The Islamic Kingdom of Yunnan was proclaimed. Tu Wen-hsiu, leader of the Panthays, assumed the regal title of Sultan Suleiman and made Tali-fu his capital. Panthay governorships were appointed in some cities, such as Momein (Tengyueh), near the Burmese border town of Bhamo. The Panthays were powerful for eight years from 1860 to 1868 in 1860. (Anderson, 1876, 343) During this period the Sultan Suleiman, on his way to Mecca as a pilgrim, visited Rangoon, via Kengtung, and from there to Calcutta where he had a chance to see the power of the British (Anderson, 1876, 242).
The Panthays in 1868 found it difficult to hold on to what they had won. The civil war dragged on and Yunnan was war-torn. The Panthay power declined after 1868. The Chinese Imperial Government had succeeded in reinvigorating itself by 1871; it was directing a campaign for the annihilation of the Panthays of Yunnan. The Panthay Kingdom’s town after town fell to the imperial troops. Tali-fu itself was besieged by the imperial Chinese. Sultan Suleiman desperately turned to the British for military assistance (Thaung, 1961, 481).
The Sultan had seen the British might in India on his pilgrimage to Mecca. The British authorities in India and British Burma had sent a mission led by Major Saladin to Momien from May to July 1868. They stayed seven weeks at Momien. In 1872 Sultan Suleiman sent his adopted son Prince Hassan, to England, with a personal letter to Queen Victoria, via Burma, requesting British military assistance. The Hassan Mission was accorded courtesy and hospitality in both British Burma and England. However, the British politely, but firmly, refused to intervene militarily in Yunnan against Peking (Thaung, 1961, 481). The mission was a failure. While Hassan and his party were abroad, Tali-fu was captured by the Imperial troops in January 1873. The Imperial Government had waged an all-out war against the Panthays with the help of French artillery experts (Thaung, 1961, 481). Their modern equipment, trained personnel and numerical superiority were no match for the ill-equipped Panthays without any allies. Thus, in less than two decades of its rise, the power of the Panthays in Yunnan fell. (Anderson, 1876, 243).
Sultan Suleiman tried to take his own life before the fall of' Tali-fu. But, before the poison he drank took effect fully, he was beheaded by his enemies. The Sultan's head was preserved in honey and then dispatched to the Imperial Court in Peking as a trophy and a testimony to the decisive nature of the victory of the Imperial Chinese over the Panthays of Yunnan (Thaung, 1961, 482). The scattered remnants of the Panthay troops continue their resistance after the fall of Tali-fu. Momien was fell in May 1873, Governor Ta-sa-kon was executed. Panthay were hounded out, persecuted and massacred. Many fled with their families across the Burmese border and took refuge in the Wa State where, about 1875, they set up the exclusively Panthay town of Panglong (Scott, 1901, 740).
According to the recent Human Rights Watch report 2007_
Human rights conditions in China deteriorated significantly in 2006. Authorities greeted rising social unrest, marked at times by violent confrontation between protesters and police, with stricter controls on the press, internet, academics, lawyers, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Several high profiles, politically motivated prosecutions of lawyers and journalists in 2006 put an end to any hopes that President Hu Jintao would be a progressive reformer, respecting the fundamental rights and freedoms of Chinese citizens.
The
Chinese government continues to use a vast police and state security apparatus
to enforce multiple layers of controls on critics, protesters, and civil society
activists. The system includes administrative and professional pressures,
restrictions on domestic and foreign movements, covert or overt tapping and
surveillance of phone and internet communications, visits and summons by the
police, close surveillance by plainclothes agents, unofficial house arrests, and
incommunicado confinement in distant police-run guesthouses, and custody in
police stations. Many are charged with vaguely defined crimes such as
“disrupting social order, leaking state secrets, or inciting subversion.” Some
100 activists, lawyers, writers, academics, HIV/AIDS campaigners, and human
rights defenders were subject to such treatment in 2006, indicating a new
crackdown. The government took initial steps to reform the death penalty system
by requiring the review of all cases by the Supreme People’s Court, which is
likely to limit the approximately 10,000 executions carried out every year. New
regulations governing organ procurement enacted on
August 1,
2006,
failed to address the fact that judicial executions are the major source of
organs used in transplant surgery in
China.
Despite exponentially increasing demands for justice, dispute resolution, and
vindication of constitutional rights, the court system provides minimal redress.
Although the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership acknowledges that many
social protests have been fueled by abuses by local officials, institutionalized
political interference in the judiciary allows local power holders to deny
justice from plaintiffs and vulnerable groups. The lack of judicial remedies
further exacerbates social unrest. The Ministry of Public Security reported
August 9, 2006 that there were 39,000 cases of “public order disruptions” in the
first half of the year, quadruple what it was a decade ago.
Thirteen Chinese villagers arrested after such an incident in Dongzhou,
Guangdong Province, where security officers shot at least three protesters, were
sentenced on
May 24,
2006,
to prison terms raging up to four years.
In March 2006, in an effort to curb legal activism around issues such as land
seizures, forced evictions, and environmental and labor grievances, the
government imposed new restrictions on lawyers representing protesters. As of
April, new “Guiding Opinions on Lawyers” require lawyers and law firms to report
to and seek instructions from local judicial authorities, often themselves party
to the disputes, in all cases involving 10 plaintiffs or more. Coerced
confessions, legal procedures weighted in favor of the state, closed trials, and
administrative sentencing continue to undermine defendants’ rights.
The “Great Firewall of China” restricts not only access to the internet, with
its 123 million users in
China,
but also to newspapers, magazines, books, television and radio broadcasts, and
film. During 2006, the Chinese government and Communist party officials moved
aggressively to plug the wall’s holes and to punish transgressors. Premier Wen
Jiabao justified the renewed crackdown, stating that “internet censorship is
necessary to safeguard national, social and collective interests”
Journalists, bloggers, webmasters, writers, and editors, who send news out of
China or who merely debate politically sensitive ideas among themselves, face
punishments ranging from sudden unemployment to long prison terms. Censors use
sophisticated filters, blocking, and internet police to limit incoming
information. The same is the truth for
Myanmar
internet users.
During the first half of 2006, Chinese officials shut down more than 700 online
forums and ordered eight search engines to filter “subversive and sensitive
content” based on 10,000 key words. In July, a website called Century China and
its eight online forums, popular among Chinese intellectuals, was shut down for
illegally providing news. In September, two chief editors of Wang Yi (NetEase),
a top internet portal, were fired for allowing an unauthorized opinion poll.
Blogs from prominent commentators and activists continued to be regularly shut
down.
Chinese government charged with subversion in 2006 and sentenced up to 10, 12,
four and two-year sentences respectively for internet writers Ren Ziyuan, Li
Jianqiang, Guo Qizhen, and Li Yuanlong. The CCP and government authorities grew
less tolerant of newspapers’ exposure
of official corruption, rural protests, suspect land deals, and legal
misconduct. In January 2006, on orders from party officials, China Youth Daily
temporarily closed Freezing Point (Bingdian), its weekly supplement. Bingdian
could not reopen until editor-in-chief Li Datong and his deputy were
‘reassigned.’ In September 2006, new measures mandated that foreign news
agencies not sell stories directly to Chinese outlets but submit them first to
Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency, for clearance and subsequent
distribution.
Foreign journalists are not exempt from harassment, detention, and occasional
violence. In August, the Foreign Correspondent Club of China (FCCC) reported
‘widespread detentions’ and some instances of physical assaults of foreign
reporters. Chinese nationals working for foreign newspapers are especially
vulnerable. In September, Zhao Yan, a researcher for the New York Times, was
sentenced to three years on fraud charges following a trial marred by due
process violations.
As human rights defenders in China have become more adroit at documenting
abuses, Chinese authorities, who have never tolerated independent monitoring,
have retaliated with harassment, unlawful detention, banishment from Beijing,
and long prison sentences, often on trumped-up charges. Authorities have
particularly targeted a small, loosely-organized network of lawyers, legal
academics, rights activists, and journalists, known as the weiquan movement,
which aims to pursue social justice and constitutional rights through
litigation. The movement focuses on housing rights, family planning abuses, land
seizures, workers’ rights, and police abuse, among other issues. Since mid-July
2006, Hu Jia has been held under house arrest and repeatedly taken by the police
for interrogation. Chen Guangcheng, a blind legal activist who exposed abuses
connected to family planning was sentenced in August to more than four years in
prison on charges of obstructing traffic. After many months of house arrest,
police harassment, and threats, Gao Zhisheng, a prominent human rights lawyer,
was arrested in October 2006 on state security charges of ‘inciting subversion’.
Beijing police continued to deny Gao’s lawyer permission to visit him. Legal
activist Yang Maodong (also known as Guo Feixiong), who was assisting Guangdong
villagers resist land seizures, was formally arrested in September 2006 on
charges of ‘illegal business activities.’ In June 2006, a local court sentenced
Huang Weizhong, elected by villagers in Fujian to protest land acquisition
procedures, to three years in prison.
The Chinese government continues to prevent workers from forming independent
trade unions, arguing that the party-controlled All-China Federation of Trade
Unions (ACFTU) sufficiently ensures their rights. As a result, increasing
numbers have taken to the streets and to the courts, seeking redress for lost
wages and pensions, forced and uncompensated overtime, unlawful wage deductions,
employers’ violations of minimum wage regulations, and unhealthy and dangerous
working conditions.
China does not recognize freedom of religion outside of the state-controlled
system in which all congregations, mosques, temples, churches, and monasteries
must register.
Registration entails government vetting and ongoing monitoring of religious
personnel, seminary applicants, and publications; scrutiny of financial records
and membership rolls; and veto power over group activities. Failure to register
renders a religious organization illegal and subject to closure, fines, and
criminal sanctions. Despite the restrictions, the number of religious
practitioners continues to grow. The government also curtails religious freedom
by designating some groups as cults, such as the Falungong. Leaders and those
caught publishing and distributing Falungong literature face severe repression.
Local officials and security forces continue to obstruct efforts by activists
and grassroots organizations to contribute to prevention and education efforts
and to organize care-giving. Although there are hundreds of nongovernmental
HIV/AIDS organizations in China, only a few are recognized by the government. In
2006, security officers in several provinces detained and beat activists
lobbying for improved compensation for AIDS sufferers who contracted the disease
through blood transfusions. In October 2006, local authorities in Xinjiang shut
down the Snow Lotus HIV/AIDS Education Institute, an HIV/AIDS advocacy group
with funding from the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The
group was closed after it exposed the exclusion of 19 junior high school
students from their school because they were suffering from Hepatitis B.
Forced evictions have increased as Beijing clears entire neighborhoods to make
room for Olympic sites and to beautify the city. An official with the Beijing
Municipal Administration of State Land, Resources and Housing has indicated that
some 300,000 people are scheduled for relocation to accommodate beautification
projects alone. With courts offering little protection, residents have banded
together to protest collusion between developers and local officials who
forcibly evict them from their homes or sell off the land they have been
farming. Residents rarely win, in part because land is not individually owned.
In mid-September, Beijing municipal authorities shut down over 50 unregistered
schools for children of migrant workers, leaving tens of thousands of children
without access to education. This followed a discussion by the authorities about
ways to expel one-million migrant laborers from Beijing.
When Hong Kong became a Special Autonomous Region within the People’s Republic
of China in 1997 under the principle of ‘one country, two systems,’ it was
promised a ?high degree of autonomy.? But Beijing has vetoed moves toward
universal suffrage and ruled out direct elections for Hong Kong’s legislature in
2007 and for its chief executive in 2008. In August 2006, pro-Beijing lawmakers
adopted a sweeping surveillance bill allowing extensive wiretapping, including
of lawyers and journalists. The government has refused to specify when it will
reintroduce anti-subversion laws shelved three years ago after the largest
demonstration in Hong Kong since 1989. In August, Albert Ho, a senior legislator
from the Democratic Party, was physically assaulted in broad daylight,
apparently in connection with his professional activities as a lawyer.
In 2006
China was elected to the newly-formed UN Human Rights Council. Its candidacy
statement asserted that ‘the Chinese government respects the universality of
human rights and supports the UN in playing an important role in the protection
and promotion of human rights.’ However, Chinese diplomatic efforts have focused
on doing away with independent UN investigations, on the grounds that ‘the
internal affairs’ of a state should not be subject to investigation. China
continues to work closely with the ‘like minded’ group of countries, which
includes Iran and Zimbabwe, to roll back important human rights protections. In
August, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)
faulted China for not having incorporated a legal definition for gender
discrimination and for failing to act on the Committee’s previous
recommendations.
China continues to maintain relations with and provide aid to a wide variety of
pariah countries, including Sudan and Burma. In 2006, China became the largest
investor in Sudan’s oil sector but did not use its leverage to publicly press
the government to end egregious human rights violations in Darfur or accept a UN
force there, and blocked the imposition of targeted sanctions in Dafur and
Burma. China provided military assistance to Burma’s military junta, which
continues to violently suppress civilians.
The Chinese government still refuses to cooperate with the UN special rapporteur on North Korea, and continues to assert that North Koreans are economic immigrants, not refugees.
Although
the European Union and others continued to pursue human rights dialogues with
China in 2006, the sessions produced no concrete results and no further movement
toward ratification by China of the International Covenant on Political and
Civil Rights (ICCPR).
Actually, Communist China and Burma were all in the same boat not long ago, as
both of them were Socialist or Communists under dictators. However, nowadays
both of them tried to change their image into the open market economy because
they know that their previous system is failing them. However, they could not
let go their previous privileges so they all are practicing or maintaining their
monopoly or controlling the economy with strict rules and regulations to go well
with their needs.
Communist China is selling weapons, arms, ammunitions and nuclear technology to Myanmar Government. Russia is helping Uranium mining, extracting and Uranium enrichment programmes. Communist China is also helping Myanmar to build the nuclear reactors. Many Burmese people including students and monks are oppressed; maimed and killed using those bastards-communists’ weapons.
Note: Communist Chinese Colonialist’s Cruelties or C.C.C.C.or C4 is the other name of Military plastic explosives sold to Myanmar Military to kill Burmese People and Ethnic Minorities..
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Comments:
Dr Zafar Shah said _
You can see in the today's international news about Great Bully China twisting the arm of Holy See, Pope regarding Taiwan. The Vatican announcement, made last Saturday after two days of high-level debate on China, said the Holy See sought a dialogue with the aim of restoring diplomatic relations with Beijing and said Pope Benedict XVI and the Vatican has indicated it is willing to downgrade relations with Taiwan. But Communist China demanded Pope today, to sever all relations with Taiwan according to "One China" policy.
After voting veto To the Myanmar resolution, Chinese Ambassador Wang Guangya words revealed its true colour, he clearly stated that he wished to show that America's thought and act as if they were the sole super power is wrong. So they are trying to even twist the arm of USA.
Ma Thorda said _
Communist and Han Chinese had committed a lot of atrocities on our ancestor Chinese Muslims from Yunnan. My great-grandparents told mother that after the Yunnan Muslims' uprising, Imperial Chinese soldiers just do the ethnic cleansing in all the Muslim villages. Muslim children were tossed into the air by one of them for the other Chinese soldiers to compete who could catch with their spear! During the Cultural Revolution, Muslim Imams or religious leaders were shackled with the pigs and forced to look after the pigs. Therefore, some of the Muslim villagers have no choice but to search for the Chinese wives and asked them to rear pigs and tricked the Chinese soldiers as if those villages were the non-Muslim villages. There is curiously one clan of Chinese in Penang; they are no more Muslims but they pulled a copy of the Holy Koran with the rope to the roof. If some one died, they release the rope and put the Koran at the head of the death and all the relatives and the family of the deceased refrained from eating pork for forty days. They could not read the Koran and are not practicing any other teachings of Islam. This is clearly the result of ethnic cleansing in their home back in China.
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