The Bully in the Playground
October 29th, 2007 by Anindita Sengupta
I started my Monday morning with this video on continued human rights violations in China. Not a very cheery beginning to the week, but I definitely recommend a watch.
China is gearing up for the 2008 Olympic Games which are to be hosted in Beijing. There is something far more important than sport being played out in this arena, however. The world now has its eye on China’s human rights standards and is watching to see whether it will make good on its promise to improve its dismal human rights records. In December 2006, the Chinese government also unveiled new temporary regulations to give accredited foreign journalists more freedom in the run-up to and during the Games.
According to the Human Rights Watch overview, the country “remains a one-party state that does not hold national elections, has no independent judiciary, leads the world in executions, aggressively censors the Internet, bans independent trade unions, and represses minorities such as Tibetans, Uighurs, and Mongolians.”
Things have not improved much despite the promises according to this report. In the run-up to the Games, China is keen to present its best face to the world and freedom of expression is being heavily curtailed. Recently, Reporters Without Borders activists rallied in front of the Olympic museum in Lausanne even as the Chinese Communist Party’s 17th congress opened to protest continued inaction on the human rights agenda.
“For the past several weeks an icy wind has blown through freedom of expression in China. This with less than 10 months to go before the opening of the Olympic Games. How can the IOC and its ethical commission remain silent before such a heavy toll of violations of freedom of expression?” it asked.
“More than 30 foreign journalists have been arrested and prevented from working since the start of the year. No fewer than one thousand discussion forums and websites have been closed since July. And a score of dissidents have been imprisoned for expressing themselves freely,” Reporters Without Borders said.
For some background information on the human rights situation in China, read RWB’s Annual Report 2007 which details some of the atrocities committed by Hu Jintao’s government in the name of “harmonious society”.
Hu Jintao’s voiced rage against “hostile forces”, whom he accused of fomenting a “coloured revolution” backed by the United States and led by human rights activists and liberal journalists, when he spoke to an audience of ministers, ambassadors and party provincial officials in August 2006. As preparations got under way for the next Communist Party Congress in October 2007, public security arrested at least 12 journalists and placed scores more under surveillance. This crackdown has also extended to lawyers. In March they were banned by China’s Association of Lawyers from speaking to foreign journalists about “masses incidents”, concerning groups such as the unemployed and the peasants. In September, Chinese judges had the same ban on speaking to the press slapped on them.
The Chinese government monitors every bit of information passing in and out of the country. Which is why news reports on China usually focus on its booming economic prospects and speak nothing of the poverty, corruption and inhuman prison conditions. but here is Amnesty International’s lowdown on the rights violations plaguing China’s 1.3 billion people.
Torture and ill-treatment remained widespread. Common methods included kicking, beating, electric shocks, suspension by the arms, shackling in painful positions, cigarette burns, and sleep and food deprivation. In November a senior official admitted that at least 30 wrongful convictions handed down each year resulted from the use of torture, with the true number likely being higher.
I don’t know about you but I’m going to find it hard to muster too much enthusiasm about the Games this time.