If the APC thinks Vancouver is bad...

[mr.x]

Chinese Olympic critic to stand trial for subversion

By Clifford Coonan in Beijing, The UK Independent
Tuesday, 19 February 2008

A Chinese activist who dared to criticise the Olympics while lobbying for farmers' rights goes on trial tomorrow for subversion, a sign of growing official intolerance of any dissent over the Games.

Yang Chunlin, an unemployed factory worker from Jiamusi city in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang, faces charges of subverting state power for his activism, which has involved petitions, denouncing government corruption and seeking democratic reform of the one-party state.

Last year he helped organise a petition, which was signed by 10,000 villagers, over a land dispute. It declared: "We don't want the Olympics, we want human rights."

Mr Yang's timing couldn't be worse, as sensitivities about the Games are high. He could face several years in jail for criticising the Olympics, which are seen as a crucial way for the government to highlight China's economic prosperity, social cohesion and the economic fruits of its 30 years of opening up and reforms.

But the Communist Party brooks no dissent and has kept dissidents on a tight rein. Police recently formally arrested the prominent Beijing dissident Hu Jia, who was detained for inciting subversion after vocally supporting campaigns for democratic reform, Aids patients and environmental protection. He is in custody and there has been no word on when he will face trial.

Mr Yang, 51, goes on trial at the Jiamusi City Intermediate People's Court in Heilongjiang tomorrow on charges of "inciting subversion of state power", the same charge levelled against Mr Hu. This month, a Chinese court sentenced the democracy activist Lu Gengsong to four years in prison on the same charge.

According to his sister, Mr Yang was tortured while in detention, including having his arms and legs stretched and chained to the corners of an iron bed.

His sister, Yang Chunping, said her family had not been allowed to visit her brother since he was held by police in July. Early this year, two other locals who backed farmers' demands, Yu Changwu and Wang Guilin, were sentenced to 18 months' "re-education through labour".

There are many activists in China who are trying to highlight the problems of property disputes and illegal land-grabs. Corrupt local cadres often side with unscrupulous property developers, sometimes leading to riots. Wary of the politically destabilising effects of these demonstrations, the government has pledged to clamp down on corruption.

What has set Mr Yang's case apart, and what has most likely led to the serious charge of subversion, is the fact he mentioned the Olympics in his campaigns.

The leadership in Beijing was clearly stung by international criticism after the American film director Steven Spielberg's decision to quit as artistic adviser to the Olympics, and has stepped up the spin.

After initial inertia, state media has been critical of Spielberg and has defended Beijing's record on Darfur. The Xinhua news agency ran an interview at the weekend with China's ambassador to Sudan, Li Chengwen. "China is very concerned about the crisis in Darfur, and we have been making unremitting efforts to help resolve the crisis," Mr Li said.

[Dorian G.]

So? We already knew the Olympics are a nationalistic tool, and that China is at the bottom of the barrel in human rights. "We're better than China" is hardly an empowering rallying call.

High Hurdles | Feb 14th 2008 | From The Economist print edition

LOFTY words are always a hostage to fortune. The Olympic movement boasts that the games “have always brought people together in peace to respect universal moral principles.” Yet history suggests otherwise. Boycotts marred the jamborees of 1956, 1976, 1980 and 1984. In 1968 two American sprinters gave a Black Power salute on the podium. The 1972 games were blighted when Palestinian terrorists killed 11 Israeli athletes. [And, let's not forget 1936].

Now China, due to host the games in August, is finding that its Olympic slogan—“One world, one dream”—also rests on hope more than fact. Steven Spielberg, an American film director, has quit as an artistic adviser for the opening and closing ceremonies: China, he said, must do more to stop the bloodshed in Darfur. On February 14th a group of Nobel laureates and athletes said the same in a letter to the Independent, a British daily.

Since Beijing won the right to stage the games in 2001 China has known that it would have a hard time preventing critics of its human-rights abuses from spoiling the event. In 2006 it was delighted when Mr Spielberg came on board. But to China's surprise, its behaviour abroad, particularly in Sudan, has been the focus of Hollywood's ire in the run-up to the games.

China has reacted angrily to what it calls attempts to “politicise” the Olympics. But recently it has been stung by the attempts of activists like Mia Farrow, an American actress, to portray the games as a “genocide Olympics” because of the killings in Sudan. China buys most of Sudan's oil and sells it arms. This, say activists, makes it complicit in the state-orchestrated killing that has devastated Darfur.

To deflect such charges, China has shifted a little from its usual refusal to get involved in other countries' political affairs. Western diplomats credit China with helping to persuade Sudan to accept a UN peacekeeping mission there. But this has not satisfied Mr Spielberg.

Even as it rejects their “politicisation”, the games are of huge political importance to China. The Olympiads of the 1970s and 1980s were an athletic projection of the cold war; now China's leaders want to show off their country as a respected world power, no longer weighed down by memories of the killings of pro-democracy demonstrators in Beijing in 1989. (They want to top the medal table too.) George Bush has said he will be there.

But activists may be hard to muzzle. What if one of the guests says something rude? The Olympic movement's rules bar athletes from making political “demonstrations” at Olympic venues. But this week, after much criticism, the British Olympic Association said it was rethinking a decision to ask its team members to promise not to comment on sensitive issues during the games. Politics will intrude one way or another.

About three pages after this article the print edition has a full-page ad for savedarfur.org criticizing China for its role in the genocide.
china's government blows=not news

[ckkelley]

Yeah the apc is a loser group. Anything that pisses them off makes me happy!

[Yume-sama]

In a lot of strange ways China is more peaceful and free, as long as you don't value free speech.

But, I'm not exactly some vigilante who gets worked up about... anything, so I think I'd fair well in the glorious nation of China

Certainly wouldn't want to end up in the secret "re-education" labor camps outside of Beijing...

[mr.x]

Do you know what the APC reminds me of? The musical/film RENT:

I hated every 135 minutes of it. Heroic HIV-positive New Yorkers who do nothing and do not want to pay rent. They worship a flirty drag queen named Angel.

by Victoria Alexander | November 22, 2005

Why hail the lives of a group of people who do nothing, engage in sexually risky behavior, get terminally ill, and refuse to pay their rent? Because they feel that it is only important to love and let someone else pay the Con Ed bill? To find this “truth,” these misfits have traversed a lifestyle of anonymous, multiple sex partners and needle drugs. Larson ignores what made this group of sweet kids damaged souls of hopelessness.

Who are these boring, uncreative friends? Roger (Adam Pascal) is a songwriter who hasn’t written a song in a year. He just kicked heroin. His tenement roommate is Mark (Anthony Rapp), an out-of-work filmmaker who keeps filming his friends sitting around. Surprisingly, since Mark appears gay, he was unceremoniously dumped by sultry performance artist Maureen (Idina Menzel), who is now in love with a successful lawyer, jealous Joanne (Tracie Thoms). Downstairs lives Mimi (Rosario Dawson), a fully-dressed exotic dancer who does not make enough money to pay her rent either. She is a heroin addict. She likes sullen Roger. It is so sweet when they admit to each other they are both taking AZT and are HIV-positive!

WEST SIDE STORY’S Maria and Tony look like whining babies now!

Roger and Mark’s buddy Tom (Jesse L. Martin) turns up. He is homeless, jobless, and has just been mugged. But he has a really good attitude! He meets the Soul of RENT, precious Angel (Wilson Jermaine Heredia), a drag queen. They are HIV-positive. That makes four sick people in one movie. They go to AIDS meetings. Everyone gets up and sings a We Shall Overcome song.

Trying to promote reality into these happy-go-lucky freeloaders is Benjamin Coffin III (Taye Diggs). He married their tenement owner's daughter and, even though he long ago promised his friends their valuable loft rent-free, he now needs the space for a business enterprise. What an ***! Where is the love in New York City real estate?

In order to save the building from urban revitalization so in demand on the Lower East Side of New York City, Maureen stages a one-woman show in protest.

Not to mention that the music was terrible....

[SpongeG]

omg you bothered to see that crap fest?

[mr.x]

Originally Posted by SpongeG

omg you bothered to see that crap fest?

or rather i was forced to. They did have one good song though.

[bugsy]

I lol'd a little. We should send our own bleeding-heart socialists to China and let them see how communists gets it done.