Things seem to be going from bad to worse in China. Information is so hard to come by and worse, hard to rely on. Here's a real thriller from the South China Morning Post, followed by Al-Jazeera providing hard news.
World warned about Tibetan 'terrorist' group
Beijing goes on verbal offensive against activists,
Nancy Pelosi
Apr 14, 2008Beijing
has gone on the offensive against western critics of its handling of the riots in Tibet by slamming US politician Nancy Pelosi as "the least popular person in China" and labelling the Tibetan Youth Congress as the No1 common enemy of humankind.
http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/SCMP/menuitem.2c913216495213d5df646910cba0a0a0/?vgnextoid=56d95afa63849110VgnVCM100000360a0a0aRCRD&vgnextfmt=teaser&ss=China&s=News
Get this: you have to pay to read the rest!!! Now that's real communism, BushCo Style!
Tibetan monks held for 'bomb plot'
Al-Jazeera, April 13, 2008
Lhasa, Tibet (China) -- Nine Tibetan Buddhist monks have been arrested for involvement in an alleged bomb attack on a government building in China's Tibetan region, the official Xinhua News Agency says.
The monks from the Tongxia monastery fled after the homemade bomb exploded at the building in Gyanbe township on March 23, and later confessed to planting the explosive, Xinhua said late on Saturday.
Arrests confirmed
Xinhua did not explain w
hy the alleged incident was not reported earlier, and it did mention any casualties or damage in the explosion.
A man who answered the phone at the Gongjue county "public security bureau" confirmed that nine suspects had been detained.
Six were planting the bomb and three were shielding the suspects and covering up their crimes, he said.
The man refused to give his name because he said he was not authorised to talk to the media.
A woman at the Tibetan regional public security department said she was not sure about the case because it was still under investigation.
The attack was the first alleged bombing reported in Tibet since anti-China protests began on March 10 in the capital, Lhasa.
[...] Hu Jintao, the Chinese premier, spoke on the issue for the first time on Saturday, during a meeting with Kevin Rudd, the Australian prime minister, on the sidelines of a regional economic forum in Hainan.
"Our conflict with the Dalai clique is not an ethnic problem, not a religious problem, nor a human rights problem," Xinhua quoted Hu as saying, referring to supporters of the Dalai Lama.
"It is a problem either to safeguard national unification or to split the motherland."
Earlier this month, Beijing accused Tibetan independence forces of organising suicide squads of launching violent attacks against China.
Wu Heping, a spokesman for China's public security ministry, also claimed that searches of monasteries in Lhasa had uncovered a large cache of weapons.
On Friday, China labelled a group linked to the Tibetan government-in-exile a "terrorist organisation".[…]
http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/index.php?id=46,6220,0,0,1,0
April 13, 2008
Bomb-Throwing Monks and Nancy Pelosi
January 11, 2008
The People Won't Take It!
How strange tha
t there are two major stories this week about garbage collection turning into riots. What is the karmic connection between the struggle in Naples, Italy, and the horrific murder in Hubei, China over a similar issue. Although not exactly the same conditions prevailed, the citizenry responded with similar displays of rage and solidarity. Bella Italia, con la grazia delgli poppoli, tends to have a more enlightened police force. In general, they aren't alienated from their own roots, and so understand the plight of their own people. Or perhaps Italy's recent history with the ugly faccia of corporatism, Il Duce, has sensitized the politicians. I dunno. If you're interested, here's a sample of what's happening in Naples: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22505149/
China Blogger Beaten To Death
By Christine
Authorities have fired an official in central China after city inspectors beat to death a man who filmed their confrontation with villagers, China’s Xinhua news agency reports.
The killing has sparked outrage in China, with thousands expressing outrage in Chinese Internet chat rooms, often the only outlet for public criticism of the government.
On Monday Wei happened on a confrontation in the central Chinese province of Hubei between city inspectors and villagers protesting over the dumping of waste near their homes.
A scuffle developed when residents tried to prevent trucks from unloading the rubbish, Xinhua said.
When Wei took out his cell phone to record the protest, more than 50 municipal inspectors turned on him, attacking him for five minutes, Xinhua said. Wei was dead on arrival at a Tianmen hospital, the report said.
[...] An international press freedom group, Reporters Without Borders, protested the killing.
“Wei is the first ‘citizen journalist’ to die in China because of what he was trying to film,” the group said in a statement.
http://www.mediachannel.org/wordpress/2008/01/11/china-blogger-beaten-to-death/
Here's more information from Reporters Without Borders:
Shock at beating death of executive who filmed police violence with mobile phone
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=24999