What more can you do to a housing rights activist when you’ve already beaten her, threatened her, cut off her water and electricity, forced her out of her house and imprisoned her? Chinese authorities found the answer: You can actually destroy her house while she’s in prison!

Ni Yulan has been in police custody for nearly seven months and last week, a Beijing court gave the go ahead to developers to level her house to make way for new constructions. 47-year-old Ni Yulan is a problem for authorities in Beijing. She is one the very high profile cases of the so-called “land grab” cases. For the past ten years, she has been active in the fight against government-led expropriations and evictions of people living in hutongs - traditional neighbourhoods in Beijing.

In 2002, she spent a year in prison, accused of “damaging public property” and was beaten so badly she now walks with crutches. Last April, she was detained after trying to stop officials from demolishing her hutong. According to her husband and to a Chinese activists group, she was severely beaten at the police station.

She now stands accused of “obstructing a public official”, an offence which carries a sentence of three years. Her trial was scheduled for 4 August this year, just before the Olympic but was, not surprisingly, postponed.

In China, land in the cities technically belongs the state so authorities control how it is to be used. Activists say residents are often evicted following shady deals between officials and developers.

Land grab cases are a highly sensitive social issue in China and have in recent months led to violent protests.

The Greens write to Nicolas Sarkozy in the hope that Hu Jia and his wife Zeng Jinyan will be able to receive the Sakharov Prize in person

Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Co-President of the Greens/EFA Group in the European Parliament and Sylvain Garel, Co-President of the Greens in the Council of Paris have written to Nicolas Sarkozy.

They ask him to reiterate his request, as President of the European Council, to Chinese authorities to release Hu Jia and to give a passport to his wife Zeng Jinyan, so that they can receive together the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize, in the name of all the silenced voices of China and Tibet, in Strasbourg next December.

In the letter, they add that Hu Jia was made honorary citizen of the City of Paris and that this visit would be the occasion for him to receive this prize as well.

For the past 20 years, the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize honours individuals or groups that fight against oppression, intolerance or injustice.

Read the letter here:

http://www.greens-efa.org/cms/pressreleases/dok/256/256129.sakharov_prize@en.htm 

Internet giants such as Yahoo!, Microsoft and Google have agreed to sign up to a new set of guidelines that aim to limit the information they should share with authorities.

The Global Network Initiative guidelines were drawn up by Internet companies and several human rights groups, investors and academics. They should act as a framework for companies operating in countries where freedom of speech is heavily restricted, like China.

For now, the guidelines call for an oversight body to review their implementation, but possible sanctions have not yet been decided. The idea is to get Internet companies to think about freedom of speech issues before they start dealing in countries that restrict it. Basically, when signing up to these guidelines, Internet companies publicly sign up to more corporate social responsibility.

The problem is that most of these companies are already operating in countries like China and have joint venture with Chinese partners, over which they have no control whatsoever.

The most important aspect of this new initiative is that is it public. Internet companies are publicly adhering to more corporate social responsibility and to being reviewed. Remember that in 2004, Yahoo! handed over user information to Chinese authorities that led to the imprisonment of journalist Shi Tao, sentenced to 10 years. So, is this just a feel good initiative? It remains to be seen. Of course, proper implementation remains to be verified, but this is a step in the right direction. As Rebecca MacKinnon, a professor at Hong Kong University says, “what they (Internet companies) do to users in one country can impact how they’re seen globally.” 

Smile, you’re on camera

Then again, you can set up all the guidelines you want, censorship ultimately depends on local authorities on the ground. Two week ago, Chinese authorities announced new rules for Internet cafés. All cafés will have to photograph every visitor and scan their identity cards. These measures should be in place in the estimated 1500 internet cafés in Beijing by the end of the year. And this was announced on the day Chinese authorities decided to make permanent the Olympics-related foreign reporters rules.

China has announced that Olympics-related reporting rules for foreign journalists were to be extended, although they still do not apply to Chinese journalists.

Introduced on 1 January 2008 as part of China’s Olympic commitments towards more freedom for foreign journalists, these rules mean that reporters only need consent from the interviewee as opposed to government authorisation. The rules theoretically allow foreign journalists to travel where they please. However, in practice, sensitive areas such as Tibet are still off limits without official permission.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Liu Jianchao, confirmed that the rules did not apply to domestic journalists and that Chinese nationals were still prevented from working as journalists with foreign media organisations: “We have to say that the conditions are not mature for Chinese citizens to become journalists alongside foreign journalists,” he said.

The Foreign Correspondent’s Club of China welcomed the move and said that if properly implemented, this would “mark a step forward in the opening of China’s media environment.”

Implementation, that’s the key. Since 1 January of this year, the Foreign Correspondent’s Club has recorded more than 335 cases of government interference with journalists’ work - harassment, intimidation, detention, for example. Interference by local officials who were either unaware of the rules or chose to ignore them.

For David Bandurski, a researcher for the China Media Project at the University of Hong Kong, this move is really about China’s international image: “China has decided that the international benefits they are going to get in terms of their image of openness are sufficient to outweigh any negative coverage they might get.”

Olympics-related temporary rules that allowed foreign media greater freedom in their work are due to end today.

The rules said that reporters could travel anywhere in China and could talk to any consenting interviewee without government permission. Although they were a step in the right direction, they have been poorly implemented. Several human rights organisations have documented numerous incidents of harassment, detentions and even death threats to foreign reporters. In practice, sensitive areas such as Tibet were off limits.

One of the great disappointments is that these ‘relaxed’ reporting rules did not apply to Chinese journalists, who bear a much higher level of censorship from the authorities.

China has not yet said what will happen exactly in the future. Will the rules expire completely? Will they be replaced by others rules? Foreign ministry spokesman, Qin Gang, said yesterday that new arrangements would be “released shortly”. “We will, as always, welcome foreign journalists to China and continue to facilitate your work and stay,” he told reporters.

The fact that China has not standardised the rules and extended them to all journalists, foreign and especially Chinese, is yet another shortcoming of its Olympic legacy.

When participants step out of a conference celebrating the “60 years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights” (UDHR) at 18.30 today, they will walk right into the vernissage of “The beautiful face of China”- an exhibition promoting the city of Guilin in southern China.

How ironic is it that, not even 50 meters apart, the European Parliament is commemorating the UDHR and promoting a country with a poor human rights record.

How ironic (and cynical) is it that you can listen to testimonies of human rights defenders during the day and go eat delicacies of a country which currently hold 4500 political and religious prisoners?! When they’ve passed the exhibition, they can watch “15 seconds”, a film screened on the occasion of the European Day Against Death Penalty.

No one is questioning the beauty of Guilin. The pictures speak for themselves. It’s the timing that leaves a bitter taste. Even more so if you recall that is was in Guilin that cyberdissident Wang Dejia was arrested in December 2007 for openly critising the organisation of the Olympic Games. He was released on bail a month later and awaits his trial, but the charges of “subversion of state power” remain. An incentive to keep him quiet. That’s the not so beautiful face of Guilin… The exhibition is missing a few pictures, like that of Hu Jia, who is top of the list of nominees for the European Parliament’s 2008 Sakharov Prize and hopeful for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.
  

Just don’t forget that there are thousands of faces that you’ll probably never see if you don’t look. Here are a few: Hu Jia and Zeng Jinyan, Yang Chunlin, Wu Lihong, Huang Qi and Du Daobin, Yang Zili, Mao Hengfeng, Tenzin Delek, Shi Tao, Huang Jinqiu, Bu Dongwei, Liu Jie, Hu Shigen (released on 27 August in very poor health) Yang Maodong and Chen Guangcheng, Hada, Jigme Tenzin Nyima, Runggye Adak and Dolma Kyab, Yao Fuxin, Wang Ling.

More than three months after his arrest, Huang Qi was finally allowed to meet with his lawyer.

He has been detained since 10 June 2008 and was later charged with “illegal possession of state secrets” for posting articles on his website (http://www.64tianwang.com), on the plight of parents who lost children in the Sichuan earthquake and criticising the government’s handling of the situation.

His lawyer told AFP that he had still not been able to see the evidence held against his client, although the police handed it to the prosecution. He also said Huang Qi was been kept in a room with 25 other people.

Once the prosecution has reviewed the evidence, which could take another month-and-a-half, a decision will be made on whether to put him on trial. According to Chinese law, it is only when his trial begins that he will be allowed to see his family.

Huang Qi was already imprisoned from 2000 to 2005 for posting pro-democracy articles online. Despite five years in prison, he opened the Tianwang Human Rights Centre after his release. Today, the founder of one of the few NGOs defending human rights actually based in China is back in prison. The message is quite clear.

Note: Huang Qi received a symbolic Medal for Freedom last August in support of his continuous struggle to defend human rights in China.

Imprisoned human rights dissident Hu Jia was shortlisted for the European Parliament’s 2008 Sakharov Prize. Active on various issues including civil rights, environmental protection and AIDS advocacy, Hu Jia was sentenced to three-and-a-half years in prison for writing articles about the human rights situation in the run-up to the Olympic Games.

The final decision regarding the winner of the Sakharov prize will be taken in mid October by the leaders of the political groups in the Parliament.

Read more here.

The closing ceremony of the Paralympic Games yesterday marked the end of Beijing’s Olympic party. There’s been a lot of praise for the organisation, the infrastructure and the “fabulous” show during the past weeks. Philip Craven, the President of the International Paralympic Committee, said these games had been “the greatest Paralympic Games ever.”

President Hu Jintao said China had kept its pre-Olympic promises: “The Chinese people have kept the solemn promise made to the international community. They have welcomed guests from across the world with enthusiasm and presented special and high-standard Games.” Indeed, the promise of “Two Games, Equal Splendour” was kept, but China had also promised to improve the situation of human rights during its bid in 2001. Here are a few facts which you may have missed, since the end of the Olympic Games on 24 August:

I won’t go over the numerous human rights abuses which you can read about in the article Second chance… (below) and in the detailed reports of NGOs like Human Rights in China, RSF or Human Rights Watch, amongst others.

Let’s start with the (singular) ’good’ news.

- Human rights activist Hu Shigen was released after 16 years in prison. His release is of course a positive thing, although he is now in a very poor state of health - both physically and mentally.

- Mao Hengfeng, sentenced to two-and-a-half years, continues to be physically and mentally abused in prison. She has not been allowed visits by family members for more than 10 months. There is a detailed account of the kind of torture she is subjected to here.

- 10 would-be protesters are still being held in or around their hometown. They were arrested in Beijing before they could carry out their protests. Some were beaten. It was reported that two women among the group were stripped of their clothes to make sure they wouldn’t escape.

- We learned this week that two Tibetan documentary filmakers have been detained for the past six months. The film shows Tibetans expressing their view on the Dalai Lama, the Olympics and Chinese legislation. Read more about it here: http://www.leavingfearbehind.com/

And these are just a few examples. Now that the party is over, Beijing will go back to normal. On Sunday 21 August, clean air measures will end. Factories will resume production, drivers will take their cars out everyday and pollution will come back. Protest parks (although they were nothing but a farce) are already closed. ‘Relaxed’ reporting rules for foreign journalists are set to end. While the world will be looking the other way, prisoners of opinion will be looking at the walls of their cells.