Games in crisis

Friday, 11 July, 2008

Will Beijing's Olympics, already the most politicised in a quarter of a century, turn out to be a public relations disaster or triumph?

sbs.com: Much depends on whether critics of China's human rights record, including some athletes, choose to voice their feelings during the Games, and how China's behemoth, one-party state responds.

But anything from a violent demonstration to a peaceful political gesture, akin to American athletes' black power salute at Mexico in 1968, has the potential to send the Games into a PR tailspin.

Not since the tit-for-tat boycotts by Cold War rivals America and the Soviet Union in the 1980s have the policies of a host nation attracted so much scrutiny.

Tibet, the Dalai Lama, Tiananmen Square, Darfur, Taiwan, Falun Gong, human rights abuses, press restrictions, riots and jailed dissidents have helped put Michael Phelps, Liu Xiang and Grant Hackett into the media shade.

Throw in a protest-riddled torch relay, terrorism fears, pollution, dodgy water, and the fact that athletes have sought clarification about what they can say politically, and it seems like Beijing's Olympics will be problem-free only for those careful about how and where they walk, talk, breathe, drink and think.

Australian cyclist Cadel Evans has been widely shown wearing "Free Tibet" slogans on his racing gear, but says he has no intention of breaching any IOC protocols in Beijing.

The IOC, while hoping the Olympics can serve to improve human rights in China, maintains the Games are a sporting celebration which should be beyond politics.

But as China engages with a world at what some see as a great coming-out party, it is discovering there is nothing like the Olympics for shining the spotlight on one nation in all its glories and shortcomings.

Deadly riots in March in the disputed Himalayan region of Tibet dominated world headlines.

Beijing accused the Dalai Lama of masterminding the turmoil, but the exiled spiritual leader has vehemently denied this and called on China to end its army-backed repression.

Tibet's government-in-exile says more than 200 people have been killed in China's crackdown, while Beijing insists the only deaths were 20 people killed by Tibetan "rioters".

Further talks have been scheduled between Chinese authorities and the Dalai Lama's envoy, but the exiled leader says they must be genuine and not merely window dressing for the international community.

The unrest in Tibet, which began when 300 Buddhist monks demanded the release of other monks from detention, has focused international attention on China's wider human rights record.

In April China jailed high-profile dissident Hu Jia, a move activists say was aimed at silencing dissent during the Games.

Amnesty International says dozens of people remain in jail almost 20 years after authorities brutally crushed a democracy protest in Tiananmen Square, killing officially 300 but as many as 3,000, according to the Red Cross.

The human rights group has called on China to give immediate access to Tibet to UN investigators, to cease arbitrary detention, intimidation and harassment of activists, and to allow full and free reporting across China for all journalists.

Such concerns spoiled an event which should represent nothing but good news - the Olympic torch relay.


At Sydney 2000 it was a feel-good coup. In 2008 it has been nothing short of a disaster, marred on four continents by clashes between protesters and Chinese supporters.

Disruption upset the original torch-lighting ceremony in Greece, police made dozens of arrests in London, the flame was extinguished twice in Paris, there were violent scuffles in Japan and Korea, and the route was changed to avoid protests in the US, Pakistan and
India.


Some 10,000 Chinese Australians staged one of the biggest pro-Beijing rallies of the relay in Canberra.

A handful of world leaders are still threatening a boycott of the Games Opening Ceremony and Hollywood director Steven Spielberg has resigned as the Olympics artistic adviser.

Some EU officials, including European Parliament vice president Edward McMillan-Scott, have urged action ranging from an EU no-show at the Opening Ceremony to a full-scale walkout by European athletes.

Australian swimming great Dawn Fraser cited China's poor treatment of the disabled as one reason she won't be going to Beijing, and embarrassed Games officials were forced to apologise and withdraw an official volunteer guide which offended disabled people.

ll of these problems will seem tiny, however, if Beijing can't produc one key thing for three weeks in August - clean air.


Beijing's pollution levels are often three times the World Health Organisation's recommended maximum, and China's plans to reduce it include everything from cloud seeding to massive factory shutdowns and halving the number of cars on the road.

But if the promised "green Games" turn out to be brown, the IOC has vowed to postpone outdoor endurance events including the marathon, triathlon, road cycling, road walking and mountain biking.

Ethiopia's world marathon record-holder Haile Gebreselassie has already indicated he will pull out because of fears for his health.

Most of Australia's track and field team, also concerned about pollution, will forgo the opening ceremony to stay in training camps in Japan and Hong Kong.

Cutting pollution was one of the promises Beijing made to secure the Games.

Reducing restrictions on foreign media was another.

But the US watchdog group, the Committee to Protect Journalists, says the promised press freedoms - which do not apply to domestic media and expire after the Olympics - have been widely ignored, especially in Tibet.
It says other sensitive areas off-limits to reporters include the Muslim Xinjiang region, protests over social or environmental issues, HIV/AIDS patients, crackdowns on North Korean refugees and the outlawed Falun Gong spiritual group.

China, a big investor in Sudan's oil industry and its largest weapons supplier, has also faced widespread Western criticism that it has not used its influence in Sudan to press for an end to the so-called Darfur genocide in which over 200,000 people have been killed.


China says the biggest threat to its Games comes from terrorism.

But Singapore-based terrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna characterises the threat as "medium to low".

He says only one or two terrorist groups are capable of carrying out attacks in northeast Asia, and their ability to operate within China's tightly controlled society is very limited.

Former IOC president Juan Antonio Samaranch, who famously declared Sydney's 2000 Games the best ever, predicted a year ago Beijing's would be even better.

But less than four months before the opening ceremony his successor Jacques Rogge admitted the Games were facing a "crisis".

Source: AAP

European Parliament condemns China’s lack of progress on human rights, parliament’s president says he will boycott Olympic opening ceremony

10 July 2008

Reporters without borders: European Parliament condemns China’s lack of progress on human rights, parliament’s president says he will boycott Olympic opening ceremony

Reporters Without Borders welcomes a resolution adopted by the European Parliament today deploring the fact that Europe’s relations with China are only advancing on the commercial and economic fronts and have not been accompanied by any significant progress on human rights and democracy.

Condemning China’s “widespread and systematic human rights abuses,” the resolution reminds the Chinese authorities of the commitments they gave in 2001 when Beijing was awarded the 2008 Olympic Games and urges them to seize the “historic opportunity” to ensure respect for human rights and pardon all political prisoners.

Daniel Cohn-Bendit, co-president of the Green Party group in the European Parliament, today condemned French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s decision to attend the Olympic Games opening ceremony as “scandalous.” The Greens backed a resolution calling for a boycott of the ceremony if it was not preceded by significant progress on human rights.

Today’s resolution came one day after European Parliament president Hans-Gert Pöttering announced that he would not attend the opening ceremony because talks between the Chinese government and the Dalai Lama’s representatives have been “inconclusive.”

A jittery China awaits the Olympics

IHT: AP / BEIJING: With a month to go before the Olympics — a time when most host cities are set to offer the world a warm greeting — Beijing seems wary.

Hotels are empty as stricter visa rules keep visitors away. Police in bulletproof vests and with bomb-sniffing dogs prowl roadways. Peddlers have been told to clear off the streets, and unsightly restaurants have been closed. New postal rules prohibit the mailing not only of explosives, but any pastes, electronics and "unidentifiable metal objects."

Even in the hills outside Beijing, farmers who have turned their farmhouses into rustic inns have been told by police to turn away one group of would-be guests. "Foreigners! Oh, that's a bit troublesome," said Sun Fuwang, proprietor of the Spartan Fuwang Farm Home near the tombs of China's last imperial rulers.

Alongside stunning sports venues, new subway lines and floral displays, Beijing is rolling out restrictive measures dampening any festive feeling ahead of the Aug. 8-24 games.

"It's like they're getting ready to throw a great party and then trying to restrain the partygoers," said Bob Dietz of the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, who couldn't get a visa despite 20 years of travel to China. "They're not ready to welcome the world."

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Chinese officials have defended the moves as necessary to prevent terrorism and keep out what a Foreign Ministry consular affairs official called "hostile forces." The list of disaffected groups is long, from unemployed workers to foreign activists critical of China's policies on human rights.

But the mood contrasts with the lavish, meticulous preparations for an Olympics long billed as the celebration of an open, modern China. It shows just how shaken Chinese leaders are by unforeseen, tumultuous events this year.

Freak snowstorms that paralyzed the south and an earthquake that killed nearly 70,000 people revealed vulnerabilities at home, while a Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule and protests against the Olympic torch relay exposed the government's lack of acceptance abroad. In between, police said they foiled plots by Muslims from China's Central Asian borderlands, one to blow up a Chinese airliner, the other to kidnap Olympic athletes and journalists.

In recent weeks, ordinary Chinese have acidly paired the calamities with the five whimsical Olympic mascots: Beibei the fish with the snowstorms, Jingjing the panda with the Sichuan earthquake, Huanhuan the Olympic flame with the torch relay, Yingying the Tibetan antelope with the Tibet protests and Nini the bird either with a train derailment in April or soaring inflation.

With the games drawing near, the communist leadership called in senior government and provincial officials last month to put them on notice that there should be no security glitches. More than 440,000 people have been mobilized for security for the games, from crack commando squads to neighborhood watch patrols, and leaders are trying to temper public expectations for a superb games.

"In the beginning, the Beijing municipal government says they want to have the best games in Olympic history. Now they say a 'high-quality Olympics with Chinese characteristics.' They have lowered expectations," said Jin Canrong, an international affairs expert at Renmin University. "If the games go without incident, that will be successful."

Beijing's games still could please. The city's $40 billion makeover has transformed the ancient, often dull low-rise capital into a metropolis of 24-hour bustle. Traditional culture puts a premium on being a good host. Normally unruly Beijingers have been told how to cheer for foreign teams and to line up for buses instead of pushing onboard.

All the security efforts are drawing attention to something Chinese leaders have hoped to play down — that China is still a police state, if a chaotic one. They are also raising questions about whether a festive Olympics is possible.

Nightspots near the Worker's Stadium and Worker's Gymnasium, where boxing and other events will be held, have been ordered shut for the games, as a security precaution. Elsewhere, bars and restaurants which often stay open until the last patron leaves, have been told 2 a.m. is the limit.

Rural Chinese who flock to the capital to seek redress for grievances that local officials ignore already have been sent home, while known dissidents have been jailed, put under watch or told to leave.

Arbitrary enforcement of rules, long a staple of life in China, is falling hard on ordinary Chinese. As construction sites are shut down in July to try clear the city's notorious smog, and small restaurants closed for being dirty or other unspecified reasons, many of the city's migrant workers — who make up more than a fifth of Beijing's 18 million people — will be left without pay. Many are leaving.

"Temporarily closed for the Olympic period," read the sign on the Xi'an Cured Meat Buns restaurant, near the Silk Alley market, a tourism hotspot filled with knockoffs of designer clothes. At the also-shut Old Sichuan Homestyle restaurant nearby, an employee said he and his five co-workers were soon leaving for home near Sichuan, out of money.

"Those of us who don't have licenses all have to close," said Zhao Jingchun, a plump, middle-aged laid-off factory worker who runs a small crepe stall to make money. She planned to flout the restrictions. "No matter how strict they are going to enforce the rules, I have to work. I need to eat."

The tighter visa requirements keeping foreigners out have been accompanied by recurring police checks on places where foreigners live and orders for those properly papered to register at local police stations.

The sweeping controls have reinforced perceptions that the government wants to head off even legitimate protests.

"Some security measures are understandable. Look at the United States after the 9/11 terrorist incidents," said Xu Youyu, a retired philosophy lecturer and frequently outspoken critic of government policies.

"But the system in China doesn't have to give the same considerations to civil liberties. The government is strengthening control and supervision over people who have no intention of disrupting the Olympics. This is a violation of basic human rights and undermines the promises made when bidding for the Olympics," Xu said. "This is intolerable."

With the city feeling emptier and less lively, those left feel part of an elaborately staged event meant to show a perfect but unreal Beijing to the half-million athletes, journalists, dignitaries and tourists expected to come to the games.

"It's not about having people enjoy the Olympics. If nobody came that would be a successful Olympics," said Anne Stevenson-Yang, an American private equity consultant in Beijing. "It's theater. The foreigners are there as props but the fewer the better."

Eutelsat suppresses independent Chinese-language TV station NTDTV to satisfy Beijing

Press Release - Reporters without borders

10 July 2008

European satellite operator Eutelsat suppresses independent Chinese-language TV station NTDTV to satisfy Beijing

Previously unpublished conversation by Eutelsat employee confirms move was politically motivated

Reporters Without Borders calls on Giuliano Berretta, the CEO of the European satellite company Eutelsat, to quickly reverse its decision to suspend independent Chinese-language broadcaster NTDTV’s use of Eutelsat’s W5 satellite to broadcast to Asia.

Eutelsat claims it was forced to suspend NTDTV (New Tang Dynasty Television) on 16 June because of a technical problem but a recorded conversation with an employee of Eutelsat show it was a premeditated, politically-motivated decision violating the free flow of information and the convention under which Eutelsat operates.

“The real reason for the decision to suppress NTDTV exposes how Eutelsat operates in China,” the press freedom organisation said. “The company’s credibility is at stake and we urge its shareholders to intervene as quickly as possible so that NTDTV can resume broadcasting on this satellite. If that is not done, none of the TV companies that are Eutelsat clients will ever be sure they could not also be arbitrarily disconnected one day because of their content.”

Reporters Without Borders added: “NTDTV’s broadcasts irked the Chinese government because, thanks to this satellite, they could be freely received in tens of millions of Chinese homes. Their suspension just a few weeks ahead of the Olympic Games looks like a favour provided by Eutelsat with the aim of obtaining new deals. Eutelsat tried to drop NTDTV once before, in 2005, but an international campaign forced it to sign a new long term contract.”

In a recorded conversation on 23 June with an interlocutor the employee thought was a Chinese Propaganda Department official, a Eutelsat representative in Beijing said:

“It was our company’s CEO in France who decided to stop NTDTV’s signal. (...)We could have turned off any of the transponders. (...) It was because we got repeated complaints and reminder from the Chinese government. (...) Two years ago, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television kept saying the same thing over and over: ‘Stop that TV station before we begin to talk.’

Reporters Without Borders is posting a transcript of this conversation on its website (www.rsf.org) and it has an audio recording that is available to the media.

A New York-based TV station with links to the Falun Gong spiritual movement, NTDTV began broadcasting in Chinese four years ago. Its programmes are very different from the content on China’s state TV stations. There is a great deal of coverage of human rights issues, including the repression in Tibet and of religious groups such as Falungong and the underground Christian churches.

The day after it stopped transmitting NTDTV, Eutelsat issued a statement saying the W5 satellite has suffered serious technical problems that had forced the company to reduce the number of transponders and stop broadcasting several TV stations.

Eutelsat and Thales, the French company that made the satellite, are doing more and more business in China. It was Thales that manufactured Zhongxing-9, the satellite that was put in orbit last month to guarantee good coverage of the Olympic Games. Eutelsat has signed a contract with China to use its Long March rocket to launch Eutelsat satellites. The Wall Street Journal wrote in April: “Eutelsat for years has been trying to find a way to penetrate the Chinese market, and launch contracts are widely seen as one way to help reach that goal.”

As a company headquartered in France, Eutelsat is nonetheless obliged to respect the principles of equality of access, pluralism and non-discrimination enshrined in article 3 of a convention governing the operations of satellite companies.

Ever since NTDTV was launched in February 2002, the Chinese government has been trying to get its broadcasts suppressed by pressuring satellite operators and governments.

Transcript Eutelsat

Transcript Eutelsat

China kills five Muslim 'militants' in Olympic crackdown

• Thursday July 10, 2008

Guardian UK: Chinese authorities today claimed they had foiled an attempt to sabotage next month's Beijing Olympics as they confirmed the shooting dead of five alleged Muslim militants.

Chen Zhuangwei, head of the public security in the north-west city of Urumqi, confirmed more than 100 arrests this year as part of a crackdown against the "three evil forces of terrorism, separatism and extremism".

The operation included killing five Uighur separatists in a raid on their hide-out in the city, the capital of the remote Xinjiang region.

It was part of a move to eliminate alleged terrorist groups in Xinjiang, who, state media said, were plotting to attack the Beijing Olympics.

The state's Muslim Uighur population deny they are terrorists and accuse the Chinese of using the Olympics as a pretext to suppress dissent.

The Uighurs have been campaigning for years for an independent Muslim state of East Turkestan.

The operation involved 82 arrests in the first half of this year, the Xinhua news agency said.

In the same period, Xinhua said the police arrested 25 suspected members of the Falun Gong spiritual movement and destroyed seven printing works accused of spreading the group's "reactionary propaganda".

The US-based Falun Dafa Information Centre claimed there have been more than 8,000 arrests in 29 provinces since December 2007.

"Falun Gong adherents pose no threat whatsoever to the games. The Olympics are being taken as an excuse to put them behind bars for years," its spokesman Erping Zhang said.

Pre-Olympics security sweep nets foreigners, Chinese alike

By TIM JOHNSON

McClatchy Newspapers

When Dechen Pemba, a British citizen, walked out of her Beijing apartment at 8:55 one morning this week, she found seven to eight security agents milling about waiting for her.

They allowed her to throw some clothes in a rucksack, then took her in a whizzing convoy to the airport, ordering her deportation on a flight to London.

The expulsion of Pemba, who's of Tibetan descent, is part of a broader campaign to sweep away anyone deemed a potential troublemaker before the Aug. 8-24 Olympic Games. Under the slogan "Peaceful Beijing," security forces wield what human rights monitors call an unprecedented mandate to rid the city of anyone they deem undesirable.

Employing upward of 200,000 closed-circuit television cameras and reviving the use of neighborhood watch committees, authorities have their sights on foreigners with lapsed visas, property activists, petitioners, beggars, prostitutes, street vendors or anyone else who might give Beijing an unsanitary appearance or dare to raise a voice of protest as the world tunes into the Olympics.

Pemba, who's 30, didn't fall into any of those categories. She held a work visa that was valid until November, and she earned a living teaching language part time at a private school. She was perplexed at her deportation.

"When I asked exactly why I was being made to leave, I was told that I ought to know what I had done wrong," she said, adding that the agents told her, "I was forbidden to come back to China for five years."

Pemba was forced to abandon her apartment with most of her belongings still inside.

"My tickets for Olympics events were also confiscated, along with my Bank of China bankbook," she said. "I was also made to give them my PIN number for that bank account."

Pemba was once active in Berlin on behalf of the International Campaign for Tibet, which works closely with the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader, who lives in India. She said she came to China in 2006 to study Mandarin and had stayed away from activism there.

Official suspicions appear to have been aroused either because of her Tibetan heritage or because she's the niece of Tsering Shakya, a prominent Tibetan historian who teaches at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver. Shakya is a critic of China's iron-fisted control of Tibet.

"I think the Chinese government thinks that any Tibetan is a potential troublemaker," Shakya said in an e-mail. "The Olympics are only a few weeks away and they are paranoid that something will go wrong. All Tibetans who are in the city privately have been told to leave Beijing during the Olympics."

Riots broke out March 14 in Lhasa, Tibet's capital, triggering unrest in the Tibetan areas of China that turned into the worst ethnic rioting in nearly two decades in the country. Angered by China's handling of the protests, pro-Tibet activists disrupted the global Olympic torch relay in Europe in April, embarrassing Beijing and inflaming public sentiment.

A British Embassy spokesman, Bret Sutcliffe, said no other Britons were known to have been expelled from China this year.

Nicholas Bequelin, a researcher based in Hong Kong for Human Rights Watch, an advocacy group, said the magnitude of the sweep was unprecedented, larger than for a 1995 U.N. global conference on women. He said police had mobilized some 100,000 members of neighborhood watch committees as informers, "reviving tactics as they were under Mao," a reference to Mao Zedong, the founder of modern China.

Authorities are worried about any disruption to the Olympics, Bequelin said.

"The slightest attempt to protest, pass a message, unfurl a banner, wear a T-shirt, any kind of expression of support for a cause, is what they want to avoid," Bequelin said.

He said he was concerned that an empowered security apparatus that vigorously used house arrest against dissidents, employed neighborhood snoops and expanded the use of close-circuit TV cameras wouldn't fade away after the Olympics.

"This is going to be the new 'normal' after the games," he said.

Pemba is still getting over jet lag in London after her deportation Monday, and rethinking how 30 or so security agents in four vehicles took part in the operation to get her to the airport and put her aboard an Air China flight.

As she boarded the plane, Pemba said, "They said they hoped I wouldn't cause trouble again."

The officials didn't explain what they'd do with the money in her bank account or with her prized tickets to the Olympics.

"I had about six tickets," she said, including to rowing and track and field events, which she'd waited months to see.

Media Freedom Crushed in the Lead-Up to the Games

A report by Human Rights Watch shows broken promises on foreign media restrictions

By Matthew Robertson & Caroline Yates Epoch Times Australia and UK Staff

Jul 09, 2008

A Reporters Without Borders Chinese language website blocked in Beijing, 30 May 2007. (Frederic J. Brown/AFP/Getty Images)

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Human Rights Watch yesterday published a 71-page report on media censorship in China in the lead-up to the Olympic Games in August. It details the widespread harassment of foreign media inside China, and juxtaposes remarks made by Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials on lifting media restrictions with the steps taken to silence any critical views.

These include obstructing, harassing, and jailing journalists, threatening to deny accreditation, and intimidating, following, and monitoring sources. The report also contains a section with personal testimonies that detail repeated death threats, illegal detentions, and beatings, meted out to journalists and their sources alike.

In 2001, in an effort to assuage the concerns of the International Olympic Committee in awarding the Olympics to China, Wang Wei, secretary-general of the Beijing Olympics Games Big Committee, said that foreign media would have "complete freedom to report when they come to China" for the Olympics. The IOC was apparently encouraged by this, and Beijing was awarded the Games not long after.

Later statements in 2006, and temporary regulations to lift restrictions on foreign journalists from January 1, 2007 to October 17, 2008, appeared to be further indications of the CCP's willingness to allow press freedom—albeit limited to foreign journalists. However, the stories told by journalists in China right now paint a less optimistic picture.

A spokesperson from international journalist rights group Reporters Without Borders (RWB) told The Epoch Times: "The occasional good news, such as the unblocking of access to certain foreign Web sites and the reopening of Tibet, have been eclipsed by a series of outrageous arrests and increased surveillance of human rights activists."

"The Olympic infrastructure is in place, but police controls have been stepped up, the Internet is still censored, international radio stations are jammed, and Beijing's air is still polluted."

"All these topics are banned in the Chinese press," said the RWB spokesperson. "And the luxury of the Olympic Press Center that was inaugurated today in Beijing will not help foreign journalists to forget how precarious their rights are when they try to probe sensitive issues."

Chinese journalists have been placed under even stricter constraints prior to the Olympics. They are prohibited from reporting on anything that could generate unfavorable publicity before the games.

According to a June report in the Hong Kong Financial Times, Hu Jintao told the Chinese media to "maintain strict propaganda discipline."

Empty promises on media freedom

The key promises made in 2006 were to remove the need for journalists to obtain permission to travel outside Beijing and Shanghai, and to interview Chinese citizens. Before, the onerous process of gaining permits meant journalists worked in a "legal gray zone," the report says. Local authorities could then detain and interrogate them for breaking the rules. Some report being forced to write a "self-criticism" for their "illegal" activities as a condition of release.

Now, with restrictions ostensibly lifted, less formal methods appear to have been adopted for ensuring control. Reports on the Web site of the Foreign Correspondents Club of China (FCCC), for example, paint a damning picture: thugs attacking journalists in broad daylight, anonymous death threats through email, SMS, or telephone, systematic surveillance, and widespread intimidation and violence against sources.

For example, the report states that in January 2008 seven men prevented a German TV team from approaching the home of Yuan Weijing, wife of imprisoned blind human-rights activist Chen Guangcheng. Two held rocks in their hands, and the group knocked the cameraman to the ground in a scuffle. The German correspondent says: "these guys were like fighting robots. It was a dangerous situation."

In Hebei province, November 2007, a Swiss team was harassed and detained after investigating local complaints of land theft and the ensuing dispute that led to six villager deaths in 2005. Six cars containing 10 to 12 men drove up to them, claiming to be local villagers. Two of the cars did not have license plates, and Barbara Luthi, the correspondent, believed them to be plainclothes police. She said they were "quite brutal." They twisted her arm, knocked her to the ground, and destroyed their footage. She said, "I have been interrogated by police before, but this was on a whole different scale."

Plainclothes police are also said to incite overzealous Chinese nationalism to block journalists from reporting. "This is happening more and more with [plainclothes thugs] shouting that we are 'harming China' [or] 'doing a bad story about China and must be stopped' [in order to] get other villagers involved," one Beijing-based television correspondent was reported saying.

Innovative methods of control

On other occasions, uniformed police arrest journalists on bogus legal claims, such as requiring official documents verifying residential status, which is not actually required by law. When a journalist pointed out that she had done nothing illegal, a policeman responded with "I'm the law."

None of the attacks are traceable to official sources. Often the incidents end when the local foreign affairs bureau is contacted, where the officials may even apologize, and have the journalist released.

Journalists however, have still been pulled away from the news and are unable to report effectively, according to a foreign journalist cited in the report.

The incidents are rarely investigated, and no indication has been given that there has been an attempt to raise awareness of the relaxed restrictions, or create an atmosphere conducive to media freedom. Journalists may also face "evasiveness, denial, and recrimination" from officials, who blame the journalists for their "reporting style" or attempt to "fabricate news," the report says.

The report also covers the media lockdown and intimidation in Tibet, as well as the CCP's intensive control of local Chinese media, who receive a real-time list of forbidden topics, and act as the regime's mouthpiece.

Above all, journalists' sources—Chinese citizens who are willing to speak out against the regime—receive the harshest treatment. Police sometimes focus on obtaining the names, mobile phone numbers, and locations of these sources when interrogating foreign journalists.

The intensified pressure on sources is thought to be an intentional tactic by CCP officials and security forces, "to maintain a veneer of freedom for foreign journalists while seriously undermining their capacity to report effectively."

Without the protection of a foreign media corporation, these individuals, once identified, may be beaten to the point of hospitalization, or worse. In 2006 for example, Cao Dong, a Falun Gong practitioner, met with Edward McMillan-Scott, vice president of the European Parliament. According to Cao's wife, two hours after the meeting he was kidnapped and detained. She said that their house was ransacked, and that Cao was handcuffed to a chair for a month and tortured. His whereabouts are still unknown.

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EU Pres Boycotts Olympics Ceremony

By Geoff Meade, PA Europe Editor, Brussels

Sportlife: The President of the European Parliament has announced he was boycotting the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games because of the lack of progress in negotiations between China and the Dalai Lama over the future of Tibet.

Hans-Gert Poettering said he regretted the lack of a breakthrough last week in meetings between envoys of the Dalai Lama and the authorities in Beijing, adding: "Given that these talks have to date proved inconclusive, I have decided not to attend the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games.

"But I very much hope that the dialogue between the envoys of the Dalai Lama and the Chinese authorities will soon be pursued in a constructive way aimed at achieving results."

Mr Poettering said the Dalai Lama had the full support of the European Parliament in his calls for a "middle way" in Tibet, involving cultural autonomy and religious freedom instead of independence, and in not questioning China's "territorial integrity".

He added: "We expect that China will respect its own public commitments to human rights and minority rights announced when the decision to allow China to organise the Games was taken. This is a great opportunity for China to open itself up to the world and to demonstrate that it is committed to internationally-recognised fundamental rights."

Meanwhile, Green MEPs have condemned the decision of French President Nicolas Sarkozy to attend the opening ceremony - representing the EU as well as France.

The leader of the Green group in the European Parliament, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, said: "It is scandalous that Nicolas Sarkozy will not boycott the Olympic opening ceremony.

"He said that his attendance was conditional on an improvement in the human rights situation and progress resulting from talks between the Chinese authorities and Tibetan envoys. No progress has been made. On the contrary, the Chinese have issued a thinly veiled threat to the Tibetans not to cause trouble during the Games and political prisoners continued to be detained.

"The opening ceremony is a grandiose political showcase, not a sporting event. By attending, Nicolas Sarkozy gives his endorsement and seal of approval for China's flagrant disregard of its own promises on human rights."

Beijing Olympics Disaster Guide

What could go wrong in Beijing? Everything.

By Lucy Morrow Caldwell, Kara Hadge, Nayeli Rodriguez, and Derek Thompson

Slate: Posted Wednesday, July 2, 2008, at 1:15 PM ET

Toxic air, algae blooms, Tibetan uprisings—welcome to the 2008 Summer Olympics! As the Aug. 8 opening ceremony inches closer, the list of potential disasters gets longer every day. Below, we've collected all of the crises and glitches that might spoil the Beijing games. On our ranking scale, one torch is no big deal; 10 torches is a potential catastrophe. Print out this handy guide, and be prepared for the worst.

The world's top marathon runner won't compete in the Olympic marathon because of concerns about Beijing's toxic air. Pollution worries have also led more than 20 countries to move their pre-Olympic training to Japan. But nobody knows quite what to expect in August. At worst, droves of athletes could make an eleventh-hour exodus on account of not being able to breathe. At the very least, the thick air could make the 200 meters feel like the steeplechase. So far, though, reports out of China point to vastly improving air quality. Beijing's radical anti-pollution measures—shutting down all chemical plants, freezing construction projects, ordering half of the cars off the road—point out what's possible when you have tight state control.
Chance it could happen: 90 percent
Scary quote: "The magnitude of the pollution in Beijing is not something we know how to deal with. It's a foreign environment. It's like feeding an athlete poison," said a respiratory expert assisting American marathoners.

Scenario: The Yellow Sea, the Olympic sailing venue, is full of ships this week. Unfortunately, they're not racing vessels; they're gunk removers, dispatched to clean up an enormous algae outbreak that's choking 5,000 square miles of open water. The Chinese government hopes to remove the green stuff by mid-July. But for now, international sailing teams are practicing in what looks like a putting green.
Chance it could happen: 50 percent
Scary quote: "There's no way you can sail through it," said British windsurfer Bryony Shaw. "If it's still here in August, it could be a real problem."

Scenario: International concern for Chinese repression in Tibet has already sparked protests in San Francisco, London, and Paris, where the Olympic torch was briefly extinguished. The Chinese government has cracked down violently on demonstrations in recent months, and numerous world leaders have responded by boycotting the opening ceremony. The worst-case scenario, as seen earlier this year: The Chinese government goes overboard trying to squelch demonstrations and kills more than 100 pro-Tibetan activists.
Chance it could happen: 60 percent
Scary quote: "There are people all over the world who are Tibet supporters and this is just the first of a cascading waterfall of actions," said American Shannon Service, who was expelled from China after staging an anti-Olympic protest on Mount Everest.

Scenario: The chance of precipitation in Beijing in early August is 50 percent, but China isn't leaving anything to chance. The government plans to stop the rain by firing silver iodide rockets into the sky in the hope of wringing water from the clouds before they soak the opening ceremony. With so much invested—financially and publicity-wise—in weather-controlling technology, a wet opening ceremony would be a major embarrassment, not to mention a major bummer for the fans.
Chance it could happen: 30 percent
Scary quote: "I don't think their chances of preventing rain are very high at all," said Roelof Bruintjes of the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research. "We can't chase away a cloud, and nobody can make a cloud, either."

Scenario: What if everything goes off without a hitch in Beijing but no one is watching? Television rights-holders have complained that the Chinese bureaucracy is making it impossible to plan their coverage, with reports of broadcasting equipment being tied up for security reasons. Even if the cameras do arrive, it's highly unlikely that China will allow live coverage from Tiananmen Square or the Forbidden City. Then again, NBC paid $1.5 billion for broadcast rights to the 2006 and 2008 Olympics—that's a big incentive to make sure that millions don't tune in to see nothing but static.
Chance it could happen: 1 percent
Scary quote: "We are two weeks away from putting equipment on a shipment and we have no clearance to operate, or to enter the country or a frequency allocation," said Sandy MacIntyre, director of news for AP Television News.

Scenario: More stringent visa policies put in place in the last few months have already hurt tourism in Beijing. The new rules require certain travelers to show invitation letters, airline tickets, and proof of hotel arrangements before applying for entrance into China. A foreign ministry spokesman has stated that these policies reflect China's concern for security during the Olympics. If high-profile visitors, journalists, or athletes can't get into the country, though, the bad PR might drown out any potential security gains.
Chance it could happen: 90 percent
Scary quote: "Business is so bleak. ... Since May, very few foreigners have checked in. Our occupancy rate has dropped by 40 percent," one hotel operator told the New York Times.

Scenario: The U.S. Olympic team, among other delegations, has raised concerns about the safety of the food in the Olympic Village. In response to a New York Times report that the U.S. team was bringing its own beef, chicken, and pork to Beijing, a Chinese official said that outside food would not be allowed in athletes' lodgings. China might come to regret that decision if a sprinter is seen heaving on the starting line.
Chance it could happen: 50 percent
Scary quote: "We had it tested and it was so full of steroids that we never could have given it to athletes. They all would have tested positive," said an American caterer, explaining the potential problem with serving the U.S. team Chinese chicken breasts.

Scenario: Getting water to Beijing, a landlocked city, is a major undertaking. The Chinese government has begun diverting more than 39.6 billion gallons to a dried-up lake near the capital city—a public-works project that has displaced an estimated 300,000 citizens. Northern China has been fighting drought for years, so Beijing's added demands have many Chinese fearing that there won't be enough water to go around. There's also the (slim) possibility of protests by the parched at this year's Games.
Chance it could happen: 30 percent
Scary quote: "Sometimes you wonder if they need all the water more than us here," said Shi Yinzhu, a Chinese sheep herder.

Scenario: If you thought locusts were a problem only in Old Testament times, think again. In 2002, the pests devoured 3.7 million acres of farmland in northern and central China. The insects are now eating their way through Inner Mongolia just in time for the start of the games. The last time locusts reached the capital, locals snagged the protein-filled insects for midsummer snacks. International athletes unaccustomed to the Chinese diet might not be so pleased to find one in their mouth during competition.
Chance it could happen: 50 percent
Scary quote: "The first generation locusts this year in the areas have already hatched," said Gao Wenyuan, a Chinese official. "The harm they do is obvious."

Scenario: The official Web site of the Beijing Olympics says, "Terrorism, in particular, poses the biggest threat" to this year's games. More than 500 detailed security plans have supposedly been mapped out, and one Communist Party official announced that Chinese authorities have already raided a "terrorist gang" with plans for an Olympics takedown. While al-Qaida is a natural suspect for sabotage, keep an eye on Uighur extremists, Muslims in Western China who have become increasingly active in recent months.
Chance it could happen: 10 percent
Scary quote: The U.S. State Department has warned Americans that there is a "heightened risk that extremist groups will conduct terrorist acts within China in the near future."


http://www.slate.com/id/2194608/pagenum/all/#page_start

One man’s fight for China’s right to build a society ruled by law

Undeterred by threats and pressure, Mo Shaoping has defended many famous Chinese dissidents, joining them in their dream of creating a democratic nation

By Robert Saiget
AFP, BEIJING
Tuesday, Jul 08, 2008, Page 9

Taipei Times: In a small courtyard building a stone’s throw from Tiananmen Square and the political center of China, veteran rights lawyer Mo Shaoping (莫少平) dreams of the day his nation will be ruled by law and not by men.

Mo, 50, only has a tiny office situated between the Forbidden City and the Communist Party leadership compound of Zhongnanhai, but for years it has been his base for challenging the mighty state in defense of famous dissidents.

Most of them have been either jailed or sent into exile, largely for opposing the ruling party, advocating democracy or accusing powerful politicians of corruption.

But Mo is undeterred.

“It is really simple. I defend these people because a lot of lawyers refuse to take cases that are sensitive or deal with human rights, even though in China everyone is entitled to legal counsel no matter what the crime,” Mo said.

“I am trying to be a force to help the law and see to it that these people get a legal defense and that their cases are placed on the public record,” he said in an interview.

DISSIDENTS

Another reason Mo takes on the cases is that he believes China’s political dissidents are right in trying to help his country transform into a democratic nation ruled by law.

“I think that in the end history will judge these people I have defended differently; history will show that these people were right,” Mo said.

As inspiration, he quickly cites South Africa’s Nelson Mandela and South Korea’s Kim Dae-jung — both of whom were jailed for their political views but went on to become Nobel Peace Prize winners and presidents of their countries.

The short and bespectacled Mo’s list of former clients reads like a who’s who of political dissent in China.

They include 1989 Tiananmen democracy leader and writer Liu Xiaobo (劉曉波), founder of the outlawed China Democracy Party Xu Wenli (徐文立), Harvard academic Yang Jianli (楊建利) and former New York Times researcher Zhao Yan (趙岩).

All were convicted and served prison terms. Xu and Yang were sent into exile after they were released. Liu, who has been in and out of prison over the last 20 years, remains under house arrest.

FALUN GONG

Mo has also defended the outlawed spiritual group the Falun Gong and thousands of people in class action suits who have been evicted from their homes and relocated against their wishes.

He has been threatened, pressured and warned against defending such people, but he has persevered. The reason? He believes it is possible for China to build a society ruled by law.

Currently Mo’s law office has accepted the case of a group of “rights defenders” who have been detained or jailed ahead of next month’s Olympics.

Members of the group include fellow lawyers Gao Zhisheng (高智晟) and Ni Yulan (倪玉蘭), as well as cyber-dissident Huang Qi (黃琦).

While applauding China’s parliament for placing constitutional protections on both human rights and private property in recent years, Mo said such efforts were far from enough and that a whole series of related laws needed to be amended.

“Human rights in China still cannot be adequately protected because China has a lot of corresponding laws and regulations that pertain to human rights that have not been amended or changed with the Constitution,” he said.

Such laws need to incorporate clear definitions of basic human rights concepts such as freedom of speech and the press.

“Freedom of speech, no matter if your point of view is right or wrong, is the most basic human right,” Mo said.

“But in China’s criminal law and judicial procedures there are no clear legal explanations on what defines freedom of speech from things like incitement of subversion. This is a problem of unclear legislation,” he said.

CONVICTS

China convicts far too many political dissidents with its vague laws on subversion and on revealing so-called state secrets, he said.

Nor have the new constitutional amendments stopped police from “extracting confessions through torture,” he said, adding that police do not respect the legal rights of suspects to remain silent and obtain legal counsel.

Mo remains most pessimistic about the likelihood that the ruling Communist Party will relinquish control of the legal system, a move that would lead to a truly independent judiciary, which is especially needed at the local level.

Mo said he believes the rise in complaints of rights abuses by ordinary Chinese largely stems from the party’s control of all aspects of government, especially at the grassroots level.

This, he says, allows local party officials to freely abuse their position, often in the name of economic development, and then escape legal redress through their control of the local courts.

“China’s judicial system is not an independent system. China’s system stresses the leadership of the [Communist] party,” Mo said.

The freedom to distort?

MICHAEL CRAIGchair, China Rights Network

July 8, 2008

Globe and Mail: Toronto -- Geoffrey York and Human Rights Watch should be commended for blowing the whistle on China's failure to honour its promises about press freedom (China Seen As Reneging On Media-Freedom Vow (July 7). Anyone with their eyes open knows China's media are severely censored. What many don't know is that Chinese propaganda, including distortions about Tibetans and Falun Gong practitioners, is entering Canadian homes via Chinese CCTV, broadcast by Rogers Cable.

China Rights Network, representing various China-related organizations, has complained to the CRTC about CCTV-4 broadcasts in March and April that characterized protesting Tibetans as violent thugs and criminals. It is bad enough that the Chinese people do not get the truth about government actions and world events from their own media. But Canada has a free media that endeavour to bring us the truth, so it is doubly distressing that distortions and lies are given free access to Canadian homes. Freedom of the press should not include the freedom to distort.

China's Pre-Olympics Media Clampdown

BusinessWeek, Web page - July 7, 2008
By Frederik Balfour

While the Beijing Olympics were expected to usher in a period of greater media freedom in China, as the final countdown for the Games nears, the vise on the media is getting tighter. That's the conclusion of a report released on July 7 by Human Rights Watch, entitled "China's Forbidden Zones, Shutting the Media out of Tibet and Other 'Sensitive' Stories."

Speaking at the release of the report at the Foreign Correspondents' Club in Hong Kong, Sophie Richardson, the group's advocacy director for Asia, said the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee is "trying to extort favorable coverage in exchange for accreditation to cover the Games."

She also faulted the International Olympic Committee and Olympic sponsors, including Coca-Cola, Lenovo, and Samsung, for failing to press Beijing more on human rights. "They all have very nice-sounding lofty corporate social responsibility pledges, but when you challenge them on their involvement in the Games, their aims narrow dramatically," she says. "Their promises only apply to people who work for those companies. They have made no attempt to rock boats."

Promises, Promises

China won its bid to host the Olympics in part thanks to its promises to improve media freedom, Richardson says, and Beijing did lift temporarily restrictions on the foreign media for the period from January 2007 to October 2008. This liberalization allowed members of the foreign media to travel freely anywhere in the country except Tibet without prior approval, and to interview whoever they wanted.

But the pendulum swung back the other way after protests in the Tibetan capital of Lhasa erupted in mid-March this year, and a government-orchestrated campaign to "demonize" the foreign media (BusinessWeek.com, 4/24/08) ensued, Richardson says. All requests by foreign media to cover the unrest in Tibet were summarily rejected (BusinessWeek.com, 3/17/08).

"The use of the state media for a campaign alleging Western bias became a convenient and powerful political tool," says Richardson. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) also declined to investigate anonymous death threats leveled at foreign journalists in the nationalistic backlash that followed.

Earthquake Leads to Greater Media Freedom

However, the reporting environment improved again, at least temporarily, when the government granted broad access to both domestic and foreign media after the Sichuan earthquake in early May. "The press authorities and the MFA know a good PR opportunity when they see it," says Richardson. However, once reporters started asking questions about the corruption behind shoddy construction of school buildings, which collapsed in the quake and took thousands of young lives, and angry parents began protesting, Beijing started to clamp down once again.

The report, which was based on interviews with 60 foreign correspondents between December 2007 and June 2008, said journalists and their sources continue to face significant obstacles whenever events are deemed "sensitive" by Beijing. Examples of this include social unrest, public health crises, ethnic conflicts, and high-level corruption. The report cited anonymous death threats against Newsweek reporter Melinda Liu and her family after the Tibetan riots in March, and the detention and beating of Reuters correspondent Chris Buckley in Beijing last September while he was interviewing rural Chinese who had gone to Beijing to petition the central government against local abuses.

It also suggested that intimidation of journalists' sources is on the rise. For example, local authorities have downloaded telephone numbers from the mobile phones of foreign reporters in order to harass Chinese citizens whom they had interviewed. But the report did not paint a uniformly black picture. It credits central authorities through the MFA with helping the media to deal with obstacles and harassment from by local officials.

The most recent example of a clampdown came on July 3 when a reporter from the Hong Kong-based Chinese-language newspaper Apple Daily was refused entry at the Beijing airport despite having press credentials to cover the Olympics. "What's going to happen when 25,000 journalists show up?" asked Human Rights Watch's Richardson. "If Beijing starts arbitrarily turning them away, that's going to be the story."

Thousands of Falun Gong Adherents Arrested throughout China in Run Up to Olympics

Falun Dafa Information Center (View article as web page: http://faluninfo.net/article/721/)

Hundreds of Beijing Residents Held in Detention Centers, Dozens Sentenced to Labor Camps

07 Jul 2008

NEW YORK – With one month to go before the Olympic Games’ opening ceremony, Chinese security agencies continue to arrest Falun Gong adherents throughout China in large numbers. In Beijing alone, hundreds have been arrested and dozens sentenced to labor camps without trial.

In recent months, the Falun Dafa Information Center (FDI) has received regular reports from adherents and their families inside China of door-to-door searches and arrests. According to statistics compiled from these reports, there have been at least 8,037 arrests of Falun Gong adherents across 29 provinces, major cities and autonomous regions since December 2007.The largest monthly total of 1,819 known arrests occurred in June, followed by 1,799 known arrests in May.

In Beijing alone, there have been at least 208 arrests across all 18 of the municipality’s districts and counties since December 2007. The majority of those arrested in Beijing are currently being held in detention centers in the city’s various districts. However, 30 are known to have already been sentenced without trial to “re-education through labor” camps for up to 2.5 years.

“The long terms show that these arrests are not about ensuring a ‘harmonious Olympics’ as Party officials claim,” says FDI spokesperson Erping Zhang. “Falun Gong adherents pose no threat whatsoever to the games. The Olympics are being taken as an excuse to put them behind bars for years.”

The Center released today a list of names and details of 141 newly reported cases of individuals detained in Beijing since January 1, 2008 (list). Those detained include lawyers, accountants, retired workers, and parents of young children. There are dozens of others not listed here because the Center was unable to obtain sufficient details to allow for full verification.

The Center also released an update on the status of 67 individuals who were detained between December 2007 and March 2008 and whose arrest the Center had previously reported. (news) Since their detention, 16 individuals—almost one quarter of this group—have been sentenced to labor camps without trial. (list)

In addition to the large percentage sentenced to labor camps, other features of the campaign include:

• Door-to-door arrests: More than half of the 208 individuals in Beijing were arrested either from their homes, the homes of acquaintances, or from their workplaces. Local police or security agents typically detained the person unannounced and then, without a warrant, conducted a search of their home for any Falun Gong-related materials. The systematic nature of the arrests suggests the authorities are using a previously compiled list of local adherents. Many of those arrested had been detained previously for practicing Falun Gong.
• “Olympic” geography of arrests: 36 adherents were arrested from Chaoyang District, home to the Bird’s Nest and Water Cube, set to host the soccer and swimming events among others; 28 were detained in Haidian District, location of the headquarters of the Beijing Olympic Committee as well as events such as basketball and volleyball. These two districts alone accounted for more than half of those sentenced to labor camps (16 out of 30).
• Short timeline: While the exact date at which a person was sentenced to a labor camp is not always known due to the lack of formal procedure, it is evident that the authorities are following a short timeline in doing so. In one case, a woman was arrested in mid April and sentenced to a labor camp for 2.5 years by mid-May; however, her family was only informed of the decision in June.

“A large percentage of people have already been sent to labor camps. The dozens currently filling Beijng’s detention centers are at grave risk of wrongful sentencing and torture,” says Zhang. “It is now imperative that the international community leverage real pressure and stop these deplorable actions. The legacy of the 2008 Olympics must not be thousands of Chinese citizens languishing in labor camps.”

The Center is demanding the immediate release of all Falun Gong adherents, and calling upon foreign media stationed in China, particularly Beijing, to investigate these arrests.

Background

Founded in 1999, the Falun Dafa Information Center is a New York-based organization that documents the rights violations of adherents of Falun Gong (or “Falun Dafa”) taking place in the People’s Republic of China. In July of 1999 China’s autocratic Communist Party launched an unlawful campaign of arrests, violence, and propaganda with the intent of “eradicating” the apolitical practice; it is believed certain leaders feared the influence of the practice’ 100 million adherents. The campaign has since grown in violence and scope, with millions having been detained or sent to forced labor camps. The Center has verified details of over 3,000 deaths and over 63,000 cases of torture in custody (reports / sources). Falun Gong is a traditional-style Buddhist “qigong” practice, with roots in the Chinese heritage of cultivating the mind/body for health and spiritual growth.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT THE FALUN DAFA INFORMATION CENTER

Contacts: Gail Rachlin (+1 917-757-9780), Levi Browde (+1 646-415-0998), Erping Zhang (+1 646-533-6147), or Joel Chipkar (+1 416-709-8678)

Fax: 646-792-3916 Email: contact@faluninfo.net, Website: http://www.faluninfo.net/

Organ Harvesting Still Happening in China Today, Says Report Author

Epoch Times Staff

Jul 07, 2008

Former Canadian Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific David Kilgour presents a revised report about continued murder of Falun Gong practitioners in China for their organs, as report co-author lawyer David Matas listens in the background, on Jan. 31, 2007. (Matthew Hildebrand/The Epoch Times)

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- The Olympics, Dehumanization, and Organ Harvesting Thursday, April 24, 2008

- Muslim Sheikh in Israel Condemns Organ Harvesting Thursday, April 17, 2008

- Chinese Hospitals Do Not Accept Donated Organs Tuesday, April 15, 2008

- David Matas Explains Organ Harvesting in China Friday, April 11, 2008

Two years ago, a groundbreaking investigative report by two high-profile Canadian lawyers raised the horrific possibility that tens of thousands of prisoners of conscience in China were being killed so their organs could be sold in lucrative transplant deals.

Unfortunately, despite noteworthy progress, the practice is still occurring in China today, said one of the report's authors.

The report was released a few months after The Epoch Times first broke the story of illegal organ harvesting in China. The report concluded there is no known source of organs for some 41,500 transplants that took place in China from 2000 to 2005 besides the tens of thousands of detained Falun Gong practitioners. China's number of transplants skyrocketed after the persecution of Falun Gong began in 1999.

In the two years since publishing their report, "Bloody Harvest: Report into Allegations of Organ Harvesting of Falun Gong Practitioners in China," David Matas, an internationally respected human rights lawyer, and David Kilgour, a former MP and Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific, have traveled the world discussing their findings. Matas told the Epoch Times in an interview today that the report has attracted significant attention around the world but he does not think organ harvesting has ceased in China.

"In my view it is still happening," he said. He did mention some laudable developments in the past two years, however.

Israel, which used to fund trips to China for citizens needing transplants, has ceased that practice completely. Meanwhile the government of Taiwan has made efforts to stamp out transplant tourism from its country to China, which Matas credits for a large drop in the number of transplants in China.

But while the number of transplants has dropped, so too has the number of executed prisoners, China's only "legitimate" source of transplant organs. The number of transplants occurring still exceeds the number of executed prisoners, said Matas, suggesting prisoners of conscience, mainly Falun Gong practitioners, continue to be killed for transplant deals.

The report has also sparked numerous other efforts to curb transplant tourism, including a private member's bill by Canadian MP Borys Wrzesnewskyjin that would criminalize the practice of Canadians traveling abroad to get organs from unethical sources like murdered Falun Gong practitioners. Matas said private members bill introduced in Belgium also addressed organ harvesting.

The Philippine government, said Matas, has also made efforts to shut down organ brokerages, businesses that set up trips for people that want to go to another country for a transplant.

The United Nations Special Rappateur on Torture, Dr. Manfred Nowak, has repeatedly quested Beijing on this issue, and has publicly stated that he found the allegations in the report plausible. Despite that however Matas said few NGOs and institutions addressed the issue, something he finds regrettable.

"Your dealing, very often, with people and institutions that have to deal with China in some way and they are not sure how to do it."

To date China's communist government has done little to dispute the report's findings, evidence of its accuracy, said Matas.

Matas said he and Kilgour received no payment for their investigation and report, which they completed at the request of the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong. While many trips to speak about the report were paid for by their hosts (universities, NGOs and individuals) Matas said they rarely received payment for the speeches themselves, besides the occasional honourium from a university. Matas said that he and Kilgour have also paid for some of their own travel expenses.

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Behind the ‘apolitical’ veil

Taipei Times: Wednesday, Jul 02, 2008, Page 8

Last Wednesday, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) finally found its voice and admonished China for violating the spirit of the Olympic Games. In response to comments by two top Chinese Communist Party officials in Tibet, the IOC issued a stern reminder to China that sports and politics don’t mix.

Beijing predictably defended statements that authorities should crush Tibetan dissidents to “bring more glory” to the Olympics. There’s nothing political about creating a “harmonious environment,” the Chinese foreign ministry replied.

While Beijing has repeatedly rebuked governments and organizations that mention human rights in the context of the Olympics, the reality is that no one has politicized the Games more profoundly than China.

China tied the Olympics to government reform when it promised the IOC in 2001 that the Games would make it loosen its reins on the press and freedom of speech. It has also used the Olympic torch relay as a symbol of its glory and rising prestige, sending the flame on the most ambitious tour in its history, escorted by paramilitary officers.

The route included Tibet and Xinjiang, where authorities did everything within their power to portray stability in these hot spots of discontent. Police reportedly launched a campaign of intimidation, detaining thousands of Uighurs deemed to be potential protesters ahead of the relay.

China has also politicized the Games by attempting to include Taiwan in its domestic torch route while preventing the nation’s medal-winning taekwondo team from training there ahead of competition (more) .

China’s Inside Game

By APRIL RABKIN

Beijing

NYT: LAST week, amid continuing calls from activists in Europe and the United States to boycott the Olympics to protest China’s record on human rights, came a rare rebuke from the International Olympic Committee. The committee expressed disappointment with a speech in which Tibet’s Communist Party leader used the occasion of an Olympic torch ceremony to denounce the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader.

What the committee and the rest of the world don’t realize is how little China cares what they think. Here in Beijing, the Olympic Games are primarily for domestic consumption, justifying the government’s new global power to its own people.

My neighbor’s 12-year-old son has seen half a dozen movies starring the five balloon-headed Olympic mascots: Beibei, Jingjing, Huanhuan, Yingying and Nini. He has been reminded of the Olympics every day at school and on the street by billboards depicting the masses as a gray ocean converging like a wave to lift up a red-uniformed basketball player making a layup. He listens to Olympic tunes — one of which sounds like a drill sergeant singing along to carousel music.

For millenniums, Chinese dynasties have claimed the “mandate of heaven” to justify their existence. On this score, there hasn’t really been any great leap forward. Inept dynasties augur instability and are overthrown. China still has no democracy and no real sense of political stability. Rulers fear revolution, and just as strongly, so do the people. And nationalism is the dominant strategy for preventing it. With a well-run Olympics, the Chinese Communist Party can prove its legitimacy and its continued mandate.

By September, it is conceivable that China’s global standing could plummet while China’s citizens see the Olympics as an astounding success. Despite the Internet and the lifting of some restrictions on journalism, there’s still an ocean-wide gap between the international and domestic news media. During the torch relay in Paris this spring, for instance, Chinese TV viewers saw mainly the heroic efforts of the wheelchair-bound amputee who used her upper body to shield the flame from a lunging protester and not the mass of pro-Tibet demonstrators.

In junior high and high school here, two semesters of history instruction focus on the humiliation of China by Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Russia and the United States during the last centuries. International criticism is described as a continuation of this legacy, and for other countries to condemn the regime is to disparage the Chinese people. Foreign criticism strengthens domestic loyalty to the regime, so the threat of a boycott of the Olympics in August only bolsters nationalism.

In March, an exhibition baseball game in Beijing between the Los Angeles Dodgers and the San Diego Padres provided a sneak preview of what to expect at the Olympics. A 16-foot sign at the stadium listed 100 banned items, including, oddly, brooms. The singing of the United States national anthem was forbidden. The police seized and interrogated a Korean fan of the Dodgers pitcher Chan Ho Park for holding a sign reading “Park is No. 1.” While foreign spectators were taken aback by the security measures, the Chinese were impressed that the teams were there at all.

For the Olympic athletes, victories remain to be won. But for Chinese leaders, the competition is pretty much over. They triumphed in 2001 when the International Olympic Committee selected Beijing as the site for this year’s games and hundreds of thousands of Beijingers streamed into Tiananmen Square to celebrate. It was one of the biggest gatherings there since the 1989 massacre.

This August a few world leaders may boycott the opening ceremony. But the Games will go forward and be televised to what China will most likely declare is the largest worldwide audience ever. The Chinese government will have pulled off a modern Olympics — as close to a mandate from heaven as could be imagined by any dynasty of any era.

April Rabkin has written for Slate, The San Francisco Chronicle and other publications.

Chinese Lawyers Arrested Before Meeting With Congressmen

By Jill Drew and Edward Cody

Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, July 1, 2008; 1:08 PM

BEIJING, July 1 -- A group of Chinese human rights lawyers were detained and later put under house arrest by government security officials to prevent them from attending a dinner Sunday hosted by two members of the U.S. Congress.

The incident is the latest in a series of moves Chinese officials have made to clamp down on dissent in the run-up to the Summer Olympic Games, which open Aug. 8 in Beijing.

"The actions show an unhealthy brazenness in regards to human rights," Rep. Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in an interview Tuesday.

Smith and Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-Va.) had invited several dissident lawyers to meet with them Sunday night, but then learned that police took two lawyers from their homes that afternoon, drove them to a Beijing suburb and barred them from returning to the city. Police blocked another invitee from leaving his apartment complex and either warned or barred at least six other lawyers from attending, according to Chinese Human Rights Defenders, an advocacy group.

"China has regressed," fumed Wolf in an interview Tuesday. "There has been absolutely, positively no progress" on human rights. At least three of the lawyers and one pastor, who was able to attend the dinner, are now under house arrest, Wolf said.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao criticized the congressmen for not respecting China's laws and regulations, but then refused to discuss what law prevented foreign officials from meeting with Chinese citizens.

"The two U.S. congressmen came to China as guests of the United States Embassy to engage in internal communications and consultations," Liu told reporters in a regularly scheduled news conference Tuesday. "They should not engage in activities incompatible with the objective of their visit and with their status."

On the same evening Wolf and Smith were supposed to dine with the activist lawyers, the visiting secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, hailed renewal of the U.S.-China human rights dialogue on May 26 as a step forward in improving China's human rights record. Rice, who later that evening dined with Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, told reporters Sunday she was reminding him that the United States considers human rights an important issue and would continue to make it a part of the increasingly close U.S.-China relationship.

Yang, at an upbeat Sunday news conference with Rice, said China also regarded resumption of the human rights dialogue as a sign of progress and expressed willingness to continue human rights discussions with the United States and other nations "on a basis of mutual respect."

Neither he nor Rice mentioned the lawyers who were being prevented from seeing Wolf and Smith. At that time, the details of the disrupted dinner were not widely known; it is unclear whether Yang was aware of them.

But the simultaneous comments from him and Rice drew attention to the frequently wide gap between what Chinese security forces do to quash dissent and what the Foreign Ministry and other public parts of the government tell foreign visitors about rule by law and human rights improvements.

The Chinese security apparatus, for instance, has tightened controls considerably in the lead up to the Olympics. The Public Security Bureau has expressed concern that Islamic terrorists, perhaps Uighur separatists from the far-western Xinjiang region, could try to mount a spectacular attack in Beijing during the games. In addition, security organs have stepped up restrictions on known dissidents and human rights activists, blocking them from expressing their views or preventing them from coming to Beijing if they live in other cities.

On Tuesday, a Chinese court sentenced a reporter for a U.S.-based online news site to four years in prison on charges of illegal weapons possessions and public disorder. Sun Lin, a reporter who used the pen name Jie Mu, regularly wrote on sensitive topics such as crime and police brutality for the Chinese-language site Boxun.

"We defended Sun Lin as innocent and we certainly did not agree with the verdict," his lawyer, Mo Shaoping, told the Associated Press. Boxun posted an article that said the charges were trumped up by Chinese officials to silence his reporting.

Attempts to telephone several of the lawyers invited to Sunday's dinner were unsuccessful Tuesday; in some cases, the calls went unanswered, and in some cases, the calls did not go through. One of the invitees who was contacted, Li Fangping, said three police officers came to his house on Sunday and prevented him from attending the dinner. The officers followed him wherever he went, continuing to do so through Tuesday evening, Li said.

"I heard that after the Congress members board their plane, then they will stop following me," Li said. "I can't see the reason why they are doing this."

Another invitee, lawyer Li Heping, said preventing the meeting would likely only worsen China's image. "Restraining the delegation's guests only shows how backwards the human rights situation is, as backward as North Korea's. Is that what they want?," he asked.

Smith said he and Wolf decided to travel to Beijing now, when there was still time before the Olympics for China to demonstrate its commitment to human rights. Their goal was to convince China to free some jailed dissidents before the Games begin. They presented a list of 734 political prisoners to Li Zhaoxing, China's former foreign minister who now chairs the foreign affairs committee of the National People's Congress, and appealed to him to work for their release.

"These dialogues are fine as long as they are not just public relations efforts," Smith said. "China has to have deeds to match its words."

Liu, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, said he had not seen the list, but that presenting it was "not consistent with the purpose of their visit."

Wolf said he urged the U.S. Embassy to move human rights issues to a higher priority. He said the embassy has between 20 and 30 officials in its commercial section but only one U.S. official based in Beijing to handle human rights.