Beijing 2008: China's Olympian Human Rights Challenges. This website was set up by Human Rights Watch to monitor human rights issues in China during the run-up to the Olympics. "This is a historic opportunity for China to show it has the confidence to make tangible and sustainable progress in ensuring basic human rights for its 1.3 billion citizens."
posted on Jun 11, 2008 - View this thread

A Lone Tibetan Voice, Intent on Speaking Out. Woeser (previously mentioned here) is a Tibetan writer and poet living under house arrest in Beijing, from where she blogs about the recent unrest in Tibet (there are English translations of her posts at China Digital Times). Last year she was awarded the Norwegian Authors Union Freedom of Expression Prize, but she was not allowed to travel to Oslo to collect the prize.
posted on May 6, 2008 - View this thread

The Genocide Olympics. The human rights group Dream for Darfur is trying to use the Olympics to pressure China to change its policies on Sudan and the genocide in Darfur.
posted on Mar 30, 2008 - View this thread

"Tibetan Refugee" is a documentary by Richard Martini consisting of interviews with Tibetan refugees who have recently fled to Dharamsala, India. It's on YouTube in 5 parts: part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5.
posted on Mar 23, 2008 - View this thread

Dueling Human Rights Reports: The United States vs. China.
posted on Mar 15, 2008 - View this thread

Risking all: the Burmese jokers who laugh in the face of danger. In Burma (Myanmar), comedians are targets in the junta's war on words. [Via BB.]
posted on Oct 17, 2007 - View this thread

China Praises Its Progress Toward Olympics. With one year to go before the 2008 Olympics, China still has many challenges ahead, like dealing with Beijing's terrible air pollution. There is still much criticism over China's record on human rights and freedom of the press, and some protests. But perhaps the most embarrassing public relations setback is that one of the official mascots, Yingsel (aka Yingying) the Tibetan Antelope, has defected from China's Olympic team and gone underground to campaign for a free Tibet. [Some links via BB and MoFi.]
posted on Aug 9, 2007 - View this thread

Tibet: Cry of the Snow Lion. The complete documentary (1 hr 43 min) on Google Video.
posted on Dec 29, 2006 - View this thread

China's non-interventionist approach to Africa. They recently lifted 200 million of their own people out of poverty. Unlike the G8, they aren't concerned about corruption, aid, debt relief, social impact, human rights, the environment, or spreading democratic ideology. They build governments, hotels and industrial plants in Sierra Leone, export 60% of oil from the 'genocidal' Sudanese, sell weapons to both sides in war zones and deal arms to embargoed dictators like Mugabe. They'll be the third largest investor in Africa at the end of this year. The People's Republic of China: threatening - or Jeffersonian?
posted on Jul 5, 2005 - View this thread

Reports of recent Anti-Japanese demonstrations in China lack any details about the content in the disputed history text books. Is it related to the Nanjing Massacre, which Iris Chang wrote about in her much contested book "The Rape of Nanking"? The Chinese government is certainly not acting as a shining example of upholding human rights by any means, but does that deprive its people from the right to have part of their history at least adequately remembered ? And is the Chinese Government using this collective wound to further its own national interests such as keeping Japan from joining the UNSC?
posted on Apr 16, 2005 - View this thread

A look at the US through China's eyes. The US has been critical of China's human rights practices for decades. In retaliation, China examines the US, and finds it comes up short in many ways. Instead of indulging itself in publishing the "human rights country report" to censure other countries unreasonably, the United States should reflect on its erroneous behavior on human rights and take its own human rights problems seriously. Summarized text in NYT
posted on Mar 28, 2005 - View this thread

Section VIII Double Standards in International Field of Human Rights

In retaliation to the annual report by the US state department critical of China’s current human rights record, China slings back with a report of its own, this time critical of the US for its human rights record.

Is this the superpower propagandist equivalent of schoolyard name calling, or does the Chinese report make some salient points, ones better left unsaid in the conquest of International Pax Americana
posted on Apr 3, 2003 - View this thread

Laogai. Welcome to China's labour camps.
posted on Nov 5, 2002 - View this thread

And the winner of the 2000 metre evasion of a tank is.... Well, you'll have to wait until 2008, when Beijing hosts the games. Maybe in seven years their human rights stance may have shifted a bit.
posted on Jul 13, 2001 - View this thread

Detainees take their lives in China Ouyr trading partners---no, not those arrested and being held. Wonder how many body parts can be harvested for the transplant market.
posted on Jul 3, 2001 - View this thread

Pot criticises kettles for chromatic similitude. Now, on the one hand, it's refreshing that the US State Department acknowledges the human rights abuses of allies such as Israel; but this annual catalogue of the world's foibles smacks just a little of sanctimonious short-sightedness. But I'm torn on this one: are such state-sponsored surveys a useful basis on which to judge the "ethical" basis of foreign policy, or are they propaganda exercises, designed to direct attention away from domestic failures and to paper over the hypocrisies of policy?
posted on Feb 26, 2001 - View this thread

Don't look behind that wall , Mr. Olympic inspector. In advance of the ongoing assesment by 17 Olympic inspectors, thousands of unwanted people have been tossed into a detention center in China, without trial. For a month, 500 to 600 people a day have been tossed in. Human Rights in China interviewed former inmates of the detention centre, and they reported

"There were no bathing facilities, food was poured from buckets and fought over by mice, and beatings with leather belts were common."

Is this what China does to "put on its game face"?
posted on Feb 24, 2001 - View this thread

17 International Olympic Committee inspectors are in China reviewing its bid for the 2008 Olympic Games. Should human rights concerns be a factor in their decision? Does a sporting body have a duty to use compliance with the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights as a gauge to measure hosting worthiness for any country (not just China)?
posted on Feb 22, 2001 - View this thread

Is everyone asleep at the wheel? "The Senate on Tuesday approved a bill to normalize trade with China, marking a turning point in a half-century of stormy relations between the world’s strongest power and its most populous nation. In return, trade relations will no longer hinge on China’s human rights record, a link that has long irritated Beijing." It is a sad day for human rights in China.
posted on Sep 19, 2000 - View this thread

The story of Huang Qi, the man who started the first human-rights website in China, is one of the most depressing internet stories I've read. Now that he is jailed for "subverting state power," no US internet firms are sticking for him, as they're too busy trying to market their sites and services in China. I've participated in protests before, but I really wish we could get together and protest bigger things, things that might improve or save others' lives. I hope the proposed data havens like Sealand get online and allow sites such as Qi's to continue.
posted on Jul 6, 2000 - View this thread