Beijing has ruled since 1949 and is nervous about its upcoming 60th anniversary. The city is requiring that secured be tighten up, and will take every measure necessary to prevent anything that the party doesn’t like from happening, including handling those giving petitions for their cases to designated agencies.
Source: China News, April 28, 2009
http://www.chinanews.com.cn/gn/news/2009/04-28/1667131.shtml
During an interview, the author of the book "Losing the New China," Ethan Gutmann, shared his view on Falun Gong’s "protest" outside of the Chinese central government compound, Zhongnanhai, 10 years ago. Gutmann said that after an in-depth investigation and many personal interviews, he had concluded that the "4/25 incident" was a setup by the Communist Chinese leader at the time, involving the intentional misrepresentation of Falun Gong practitioners’ actions to present grievances legally and openly at the Court of Appeals (near Zhongnanhai). He affirmed that the 4/25 incident was "just an excuse" on the part of the Chinese Communist Party leader at the time, and that the Falun Gong practitioners had fallen into a trap orchestrated by the Party used to justify a persecution that was already in the making. Subsequent investigation by Gutmann revealed that over the years, many Falun Gong practitioners have been killed as a result of the persecution as well as killed for their organs. He believes that the death toll has very possibly reached beyond 100,000, of which about 10,000 have been used for organ transplants.
Gutmann has been recently denied a visa into China.
Source: Epoch Times, April 17, 2009
http://epochtimes.com/gb/9/4/17/n2497771.htm
According to the statistics released by Minghui or Clearwisdom, an overseas website recording daily updates about the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China, there are about 200,000 active underground material production sites throughout mainland China. Their daily operation is to download materials from Minghui using software to get around censorship, then print and assemble those into booklets which will then reach a minimum of 40 million practitioners in China through an internal network.
Additional data released by Minghui include the number of experience sharing articles received by Minghui Annual Mainland Online Experience Sharing Conference increases from 2200 to 2600 articles between 2004 and 2007 to 11,000 articles in 2008. Since July 20, 1999, Minghui received, confirmed, and published 254,000 torture cases of Falun Gong practitioners in China.
According to Minghui, Minghui website was created and is maintained by Falun Dafa practitioners. It is designed to serve both fellow practitioners and the general public with daily articles that provide insights into Falun Dafa cultivation practice, expose the harsh persecution in China, and report the news of Falun Dafa activities around the world.
Source: Minhui, April 19, 2009
http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2009/4/19/199284.html
Netizens in China voiced strong support for victims of abuse of power, calling for the resignations of top Chinese leaders over incidents of police brutality, reported Trend, a Hong Kong magazine. On March 8, 2009, a 19 year-old student died during police interrogation in Shanxi Province. Within three days of the incident, online postings calling for the resignations of Zhou Yongkang and Meng Jianzhu reached 70,000 at websites, including official websites such as Xinhuanet.com and people.com.cn.
Zhou currently serves as the 9th ranked member of the Communist Party Politburo Standing Committee and is the the head of the Party’s Central Political and Legislative Committee, an organ directing central government legal policy and the legislative agenda. Meng Jianzhu is the Minister of the Public Security.
Source: Trend, April 2009 Issue
http://www.chengmingmag.com/t284/select/284sel01.html
China published a “National Human Rights Action Plan (2009-2010)” on April 14, 2009. At a press conference, Wang Chen, Director of the State Council Information Office, acknowledged that China faces many human rights challenges. There are many unresolved issues in basic human rights, including public participation, legal protection, social justice, employment, social security, education, and medical and public health. The public has a very high expectation and strong demand for human rights improvement and protection.
Source: China News Services, April 14, 2009
http://www.chinanews.com.cn/gn/news/2009/04-14/1645478.shtml
An article posted on the Global Times, a newspaper under the People’s Daily, suggested that the International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB), a U.S. government entity, is funding a secret online project to work with the former North America Representative of the Tibetan Government in Exile.
The article claimed that the mission of the more than $100,000 U.S.-funded project is to: collect intelligence, spread rumors, trigger disturbance and delude Tibetans via the internet. Detailed records are kept in “U.S. required format” and the Tibetan Government in Exile has provided a project location in India .
Source: Global Times, March 28, 2009.
http://bbs.huanqiu.com/shidaizhongguo/thread-180083-1-2.html
In a recent anti-corruption conference held by the Public Security Bureau in Beijing, Zhu Chunling, Party Committee of Public Security Department and the Chief Inspector, instructed the security bureaus at all levels to take "accidental death" of jailed inmates as a serious issue to address in 2009.
A number of "accidental death" incidents in detention centers were disclosed on the Internet recently causing a strong public reaction to torture and abuses by the security bureau forces.
Source:
Xinhua, April 2, 2009
http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2009-04/02/content_11121613.htm
VOA, April 3, 2009
http://www.voanews.com/chinese/w2009-04-03-voa40.cfm
The Ministry of Health is investigating the reported death of five young children in Shandong’s Heze City, where the real situation of the epidemic may have been covered up.
Since January 1, 2009, 42,000 Chinese have been infected with the contagious hand- foot-and-mouth disease, according to the Ministry of Health.
The disease spreads every year, but it struck earlier this year in all provinces except Tibet. This year the epidemic hit the hardest in Henan and Shandong. More than 94% of the patients are children under the age of 5. 20 people have reportedly died.
Source: BBC Chinese, March 28, 2009
http://news.bbc.co.uk/chinese/simp/hi/newsid_7970000/newsid_7970100/7970127.stm