Now that all eyes are on Beijing — and the shady activities that the Chinese government has undertaken on an international stage — all of a sudden, if you can believe it, the human-rights violations in China are, at last, front page news.
The top story on CNN this afternoon deals with Amnesty International’s complaints about China in the years preceding this Olympics.
“In the run up to the Olympics, it seems that Chinese authorities are so obsessed with projecting an image of ‘stability’ and ‘harmony’ … that they have really come down quite hard on human right’s activists and lawyers,” said Sam Zarifi, Asia-Pacific director for Amnesty International.
In its report “The People’s Republic of China: The Olympics Countdown — Broken Promises,” Amnesty International details what it calls a systematic persecution of dissident voices in Beijing and throughout China.
“The Chinese authorities have used the Olympics and the cleanup before the Olympics as an excuse to maintain and extend a draconian detention system that they had called re-education through labor,” Zarifi said. “What that really means is that they’re punished through forced labor to be taught a lesson … and thousands of people who have ordinary complaints or demand reforms of the Chinese government have instead been rounded up.”
The Amnesty report cites other human rights violations leading up to the Olympics. Amnesty accuses the Chinese government of using surveillance and detention to pursue family members of activists and blocking protesters from traveling to the capital city from other areas, such as China’s Sichuan province, which was devastated by an earthquake in May that claimed the lives of nearly 70,000 people.
Oh, yeah, and there are still some issues with freedom of the press.
[It] was quite a different story for reporters as they arrived at the Olympic press center in Beijing. They discovered that many Web sites had been blocked, such as those with information about Tiananmen Square protests, Tibet, Taiwan or the Dalai Lama.
Internet sites are severely regulated throughout China, and limited access to some of the sites was granted only after reporters complained to the IOC.
The same official who assured the international media of “complete freedom” in 2001 took a somewhat different tone last week.
“Yes, we promised to provide free access to the Internet, except for a few [Web sites] that would jeopardize our national security and would not be good for the healthy growth of our young people,” said Wang, who is now the executive vice president of Beijing’s Olympic organizing committee.
And also? Pollution’s really bad. Like, really really really bad.
The American Lung Association went so far as to issue a warning to those attending the games. “Individuals traveling to the 2008 Olympic Summer Games should plan and prepare for the high levels of outdoor pollutant in Beijing … [and] limit or avoid outdoor exercise,” it said.
Wow, that’s especially awesome news for those competing in, say, the track and field events. Or the marathoners! Hooray!
I love how big business tolerates China so they can keep getting the flow of extremely cheap goods and can resell at a much greater profit.
OMG!!! Michael Phelps just won 2 gold medals and 2 new world records….
waiting beet, 4 those pics that put a big smile on my sad face.
OMG!!! Michael Phelps just won 2 gold medals and 2 new world records….
waiting beet, 4 those pics that put a big smile on my sad face.
Yeah Katyta I’v been checking & waiting 4 photo #4. Can’t wait!
I made up my mind before they started to boycott them and now the word is out amongst the group of my friends who apparently don’t get it. Your reporting spec’d it out, I was just on Amnesty International this morning and China is so fucked up!!!!! If we all were to NOT watch, the ratings would be so low, it would bring it to the forefront, especially going into the home stretch during an election year. America has changed so much, it’s all about big business and who gives a shit about a person somewhere other than here.
This is why I’m boycotting the Olympics – who cares about a little disc of metal if it’s won at the cost of forcibly moving 100,000 people from the homes they lived in for generations just so you can build a pretty looking stadium – the whole thing makes me sick.
However I would be happy to look at Michael Phelps as long as it’s a pre-Olympic pic!!!
Sorry about the moralising but really if this was Russia there would be all sorts of reports about the evils of the communist regime now China have money we all want a piece of the pot.
China has a perverse obsession with “harmony”, however the revealing of their Gulag-like methods (amongst other things) makes me think that they have slipped on the fine line that is between harmony and order/control.
not to mention China has been supplying weapons to the sudanese government, so they can go ahead and commit genocide on their countrymen. frigging amoral heathens.
> frigging amoral heathens.
Remember that the next time you happily buy a $5 T-shirt at Walmarts or Target.
Actually, the cases Amnesty International is citing in the information above are quite mild compared to business as usual in China. This is a government that summarily executes people for relatively mild crimes (theft, for instance), then harvests their organs and sells them abroad.
The pollution in China is incredibly bad, because the government has a policy of economic growth no matter what the cost to their people or the environment. When I was in China, my ability to just breathe decreased dramatically each day, and if I hadn’t left the tenth day I probably would have had to go on oxygen or something.
China has not had a communist government in quite sometime. What they have is a brutally repressive totalitarian government. However, life in modern China is so much better than it was during, say, the Cultural Revolution, that most young people ignore the bad and throw themselves into making as much money as they can, now that individual entrepaneuriship (sp???) is possible.
also i heard (i didn’t check this so it could be wrong) that the money for the recent economic stimulus checks ($1.5 billion) was a loan from china. which would be why the u.s. did not officially boycot.
I am so sick of hearing the complaints of China. The US is the only country that is obsessed with pointing out the flaws of other countries, have you ever stopped to think about that? Whether it’s China, Russia, Brazil, Canada, Britain… anyone! The US is quickest to criticize.
The US has our fair share of problems too, you know. I really wish people would start focusing on our own issues first. Nobody is going to take us seriously if we are dishing criticism hypocritically.
I heard today that they had a little girl to sing their national anthem but decided she wasn’t pretty enough so they made her hide out back and sing while a “pretty” girl lypsynched in the stadium. They robbed her of the experience of a lifetime and probably murdered her self esteem.
The U.S. isn’t the only country criticizing China for its human rights violations, nor is it the first. When a violation is committed, anyone- regardless of background- should cry foul.
Diana, I have to disagree. Although China is a huge trading partner with Canada, most of my friends are boycotting this Olympics (oh by the by, I’m Canadian). There’s a lot to criticize when it comes to China. The country’s gov’t, not the people.
And regarding the little girl, how fucking horrible is that? Let her learn that the world favours pretty people like we did, in high school when boys were mean to you because you didn’t have boobs (but haha to the girl that had them in grade 7 because by grade 11, she was fat). But seriously, to do that to a child is just all sorts of wrong.
Um…I think these reports about pollution are getting a teensy bit ridiculous. I was just in China for 3 months and the only reason I couldn’t exercise was because I didn’t have access to a gym most of the time. When I was in Beijing (one month) I was staying at a university, which had a track and so I went running every day and last time I checked…I didn’t need to go on oxygen. Or something. Though I admit…I’m not Olympic athlete. I’m just working on diet and exercise (good luck, Beet, I am TOTALLY with you).
I agree though that China has some major issues but I don’t feel like people understand the Chinese enough to get them to actually deal with anything. People need to understand that China as a nation had been beaten, starved, and humiliated for a loooong time at the hands of pretty much every single Caucasian superpower. So now they–not just the government but the entire nation–feels this overwhelming need to compensate for their weakness by showing strength and unity by all means necessary. To be utterly nerdy and use a literary figure as a comparison…China is completely like Scarlett O’Hara from “Gone With the Wind” after the Yankees were done with her. That whole “I’ll never go hungry again and I’ll always have money even if everybody in the world hates me cuz fuck them I don’t need them at least me and mine will be alright”?…yea that’s basically their mindset.
So people. Next time you want to call the Chinese a bunch of “amoral heathens” or something of that sort…save your breath/typing for something a little more constructive? Cuz blasting them/calling them names/etc is not going to help the world in any way whatsoever.
what you have seen ,what you have heard through media is not always true. if you really want to know the truth , you can go to china . Always believing what the others say is foolish . china has done a lot for the olympic games ,please learn to respect the others , also other countries. stop criticize china. i am now in china , i never feel that china has no human rights . i love the country .
Em, I am not a young, fit, atheletically inclined kid. I am a middle aged woman with Lupus, and no, I did not exaggerate one whit about the pollution and my reaction to it that I experienced in China, particularly in Guangzho.
If you don’t want to accept anecdotal evidence, do a little research on the web. It is all there in black and white, “factually.” I do understand that the government undertook a major clean up in Beijing, where I have never been, in preparation for the Olympics. But the air quality is evidently still bad there, which is why the American Lung Association has released a warning.
As for the observation of someone travelling in China as a tourist, China goes to great lengths to ensure that tourists do not have exposure to the negative workings of the government. When I was in China I felt perfectly safe to go anywhere, anytime, even in areas where Westerners were still a curiousity. My Chinese government tour guide at one point told me that no one would dare to threaten or harm a tourist because the repercussions would be immediate and very harsh.
I love China too. My daughter is from China.
“i am now in china , i never feel that china has no human rights . i love the country .”
Its good that you feel that your rights have been upheld and that you’ve been treated in a manner befitting your human dignity.
But i doubt that bloggers who’ve had their blogs shut down by the Chinese govt or those rallying peacefully for Tibet can say the same thing.
“Dont beleive everything you hear from media”.
Between several media sources and one government which shuts down every outlet in the country which criticizes it who do you think is more credible??
“The US is the only country that is obsessed with pointing out the flaws of other countries, have you ever stopped to think about that?”
While I sympathize with the sentiment, this just isn’t true. Other nations, particularly Europe and the Middle East, are just as quick, if not quicker, to point out the flaws of other nations. I have stopped to think about this quite a bit, actually, and I’ve discovered that most nations are pretty much like most other nations. We’re not so different, so while I agree that the U.S. has flaws like any other country, we’re certainly not “the only country” that has them.