http://www.sott.net/articles/show/155289-Shao-Jiang-China-remains-a-land-of-torture-and-repression
Shao Jiang: China remains a land of torture and repression
The Independent
Thu, 01 May 2008 01:14 EDT
As the Olympic torch heads up Everest on the next phase of its
troubled journey next week, it is almost certain to attract more
protests as it gets closer to Tibet.
But peaceful demonstrations must go ahead: what's becoming clear is
that the real op****tunity to protest against the Chinese government's
treatment of its people will be from outside the country. The
authorities are gradually strangling dissent within China to ensure
that the Games in August go off without any embarrassing protests.
The crackdown on human rights activists in China has intensified in
the last nine months. It has never been easy for people to speak out
about issues like political freedom, the death penalty, HIV/AIDS, land
grabs, or the environment - I know this from personal experience - but
if anything, things are getting worse.
Back in 1989 in Beijing I helped organise the pro-democracy protests
in Tiananmen Square. We held public discussions around sensitive
political issues. After the Tiananmen massacre, I was arrested and
held in prison for 18 months, followed by repeated harassment and
detention. But I was still one of the lucky ones.
Many of the participants were killed - their relatives built the
network called the "Tiananmen Mothers". Many are still in prison,
among whom is Hu ****gen, a lecturer at Beijing Language Institute, who
was sentenced to 20 years in prison in 1992 for commemoration of 4
June victims. I escaped in 1997 and now live in the UK, where I'm free
to protest at China's human rights record; a right I exercised,
peacefully, when the Olympic torch came to London.
But the situation for those I left behind is quite different. An
Amnesty re****t earlier this month spelled it out: "Much of the current
wave of repression is occurring not in spite of the Olympics, but
actually because of the Olympics". Dissenters are targeted and
silenced. Anyone making direct connections between human rights abuses
and China's hosting of the Olympics is treated particularly harshly.
Ye Guozhu is serving a four-year sentence after he applied for
permission to hold a demonstration about forced evictions in Beijing.
He has re****tedly been tortured with electro-shock batons in prison.
Wang Ling, his associate, had also campaigned publicly after she lost
her property as a result of Olympic construction. She was recently
thrown into a "Re-education through Labour" camp for 15 months, where
conditions are notoriously harsh. We got a clear hint as to what
conditions will be like during the Games when the Ministry of Public
Security held a press conference in November 2007 to lay down the law
about public protests. Anyone wi****ng to hold assemblies, parades and
demonstrations during the Olympics, they announced, would have to
comply with the law - including an obligation to apply for permission
in advance. As Ye Guozhu's case shows, such permission is almost never
granted. And the consequences for those who try to protest peacefully
can be dire.
In March this year, Yang Chunlin was sentenced to five years in prison
for "inciting subversion" following his "We don't want the Olympics;
we want human rights" campaign, which was meant to defend peasant
rights from land seizures by developers and officials. It's re****ted
that he was tortured in police detention: for seven days in August and
September 2007, his arms and legs were stretched and chained to the
four corners of an iron bed so that he couldn't move. He was forced to
eat, drink and defecate in that position. On 3 April, human rights
activist Hu Jia was sentenced to three and a half years in prison for
"inciting subversion of state power" when he spoke up for imprisoned
civil rights lawyers. Earlier this year more activists were detained
or put under surveillance and there were broad police sweeps of
petitioners, vagrants, beggars and other "undesirables" in Beijing,
ahead of the National People's Congress. The Party likes its big
events to go smoothly; no one is going to be allowed to get in the
way. And there is no bigger event than the Beijing Olympics.
Recent events in Tibet highlighted the situation yet more clearly. The
crackdown on the peaceful protests of 10 March and what followed -
violence from the police and the army, mass arrests, "wanted lists" of
protesters posted online - showed that the authorities' attitude to
peaceful demonstrators hasn't moved on much in 19 years. But they have
learned to keep the media away.
Amnesty releases the first of four online animated films today,
highlighting the crackdown on peaceful protests in China and asking
people here to join its "Human Rights For China" campaign. Campaigning
techniques have moved on considerably from our 1989 protest camp.
Sadly the attitude of the Chinese authorities to peaceful protest has
barely moved an inch.
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