Human rights and censorship during the Olympics

Protest permits and zones

Liu Shaowu announced on July 23 that the Public Security Bureau would issue permits for protesting in protest zones during the Olympics. The three designated locations are Purple Bamboo Park, Temple of the Sun, and World Park. As of August 18, 2008, none of the 77 reported applicants has received approval.

A number of protest applicants claim that they have been wrongfully discouraged, rejected, or denied permits altogether. Some who applied for permits are now missing or detained. When a Beijing woman named Zhang Wei was denied a permit to protest the razing of her home for Olympic-related development, she and 20 supporters protested one day before the Olympics. Her son claims that she was then jailed for "disturbing social order" until September 6. Ge Yifei, a retired doctor of Chinese medicine and well known Suzhou property rights advocate representing 140 property owners from a development in Suzhou Industrial Park, traveled 1,000 km (621 mi) to Beijing seeking a permit to protest unjust behavior by Suzhou officials in a land dispute. As she was being interviewed by a PSB official, she was intercepted by four Suzhou officials whom placed her under house arrest in a Beijing hotel, and then sent her on a train back to Suzhou. In August 2008, two elderly women (Wu Dianyuan, 79, and Wang Xiuying, 77, who is nearly blind and disabled) were interrogated for ten hours and sentenced without trial to one year of "re-education through labor" for "disturbing the public order" after they attempted five times between August 5 and August 18, 2008 to obtain a protest permit for one of the official protest zones, in order to protest what they believed was inadequate compensation for the demolition of their homes in Beijing in 2001.

Hunan province business owner Tang Xuecheng disappeared after trying to file for a permit. His friend Ji Sizun, a legal advocate from Fujian province, applied for permits with the intent of protesting for "greater participation of Chinese citizens in political processes, and denounce rampant official corruption and abuses of power," and to "stop local-level governments from using their authority to attack or get revenge on the people who go and petition for their rights." Upon inquiring about Tang, officials denied detaining applicants. When he returned to the police station to check the status of his application on August 11, he was reportedly escorted from the building and put into an unmarked Buick by several men; and has since disappeared.

On August 18, 2008, The New York Times reported that Gao Chuancai, a farmer from Heilongjiang in northeastern China, came to Beijing to protest corruption in his home village. He mailed in his application in early August, then came to Beijing to follow up a week later, but was promptly escorted back to Heilongjiang by authorities, and was being held by Wanggang police, near Xingyi.

Web and media censorship

China had pledged that it would allow open media access during the games, but Human Rights Watch alleges that it has failed to do so, and one IOC committee member commented anonymously that "Had the I.O.C....known seven years ago that there would be severe restrictions...then I seriously doubt whether Beijing would have been awarded the Olympics". While some estimated 20,000 journalists had been assured unfettered Internet access by the IOC's Jacques Rogge, Sun Weide (孙伟德) of the Beijing Organizing Committee announced in late July that China would allow only "convenient" access —still blocking sites which reference controversial content.

In late July, U.S. senator Sam Brownback announced that he had received evidence (in the form of an official memo from China's Public Security Bureau) that foreign-owned hotels in China had been ordered by the Chinese government to comply with electronic surveillance of guests by installing special equipment (called the Security Management System for Internet Access from Public Places), or face "severe retaliation."

Due to international pressure by different organizations, a number of websites have been uncensored, while others remained blocked during the Olympics period.

Chinese police have been accused of undermining press freedom. Two Japanese journalists covering bomb attacks in Xinjiang and a British journalist covering a pro-Tibet protest in Beijing were 'roughed up' and detained, whilst equipment was confiscated or damaged.  Chinese authorities apologised for the incident involving the Japanese journalists, which was serious enough for the Japanese government to lodge a formal protest.  The British embassy was 'concerned' at the latter incident, and along with the IOC, is taking the matter up with the Chinese authorities.

On August 14, the IOC urged China to allow foreign reporters to report freely at the games.

Crackdown on minorities

Ethnic minorities, especially Uyghurs, Tibetans and Mongolians, are among the targets of China's security crackdown in the lead-up to the Olympics, along with thousands of migrant workers, petitioners, social activists who are seen as potential troublemakers or protesters. Hong Kong's South China Morning Post reported that bar owners in a popular district of Beijing say they have been forced “not to serve black people or Mongolians” during the Olympics next month by police officials. However, China's official news agency Xinhua responded to the report on July 21 and states the alleged "bar policy" are groundless and the city's public security departments, including Sanlitun police station, has never demanded any bar not serve customers from any region or country. Time magazine's Liam Fitzpatrick states the report by Hong Kong's South China Morning Post is "unconfirmed" and its information was taken from "anonymous" sources.

Arrests, house arrests, and forced disappearances of activists

In February 2008, AIDS and human rights activist Hu Jia was arrested and sentenced to 3.5 years imprisonment for "inciting subversion against the state," after criticizing China as the Host of the Olympics; comparing it to Nazi Germany hosting the Berlin Olympics. His wife Zeng Jinyan and their baby daughter were kept under house arrest and allegedly harassed while she continued blogging in support of her husband. Hu Jia, who disappeared after staging a hunger strike, has returned home after what he claims was a six-week ordeal in police custody, his wife said on Wednesday.

Mass displacement

The Geneva-based group Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions has claimed that 1.5 million Beijing residents will be displaced from their homes for the Olympics event. Beijing's Olympic organizing committee and China's Foreign Ministry have put the number at 6,037. Some sources say that as of May 2005, 300,000 residents have been evicted in preparation for the games and that police in Beijing placed many people under arrest for protesting against the evictions. Other sources say that nearly 15,000 people have been relocated.

This guide is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia.