Nine German Olympians Protest Chinese Politics
From AP: Nine German Olympians have posed with pictures of Chinese dissidents held up in front of their faces to protest the country’s politics. The nine responded to a Suddeutsche Zeitung magazine...
View ArticleDefiant Chinese Harassed, Jailed Before Olympics
From Washington Post: Behind the gray walls and barbed wire of the prison here, eight Chinese farmers with a grievance against the government have been consigned to Olympic limbo. Their indefinite...
View ArticleThe Reform Fantasy
James Mann has an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal about prospects for political reform considering the Chinese government’s behavior in the run-up to the Olympics: China’s actions over the past year —...
View ArticleForeign Activists Manage to Pierce China’s Broad Security Apparatus
Edward Cody reports in the Washington Post: China’s intense efforts to block any protest that would mar the Olympic Games were challenged Wednesday by foreign activists equally bent on diverting...
View ArticleActivist Held After Seeking Protest Permit
Mure Dickie reports in the Financial Times: A housing activist who applied for permission to hold a demonstration in Beijing’s specially designated Olympic protest zones has been detained by police....
View ArticleWhy China Loves the Olympics
Muhammad Cohen writes in the Guardian: It was easy to spot in Sichuan, and it will undoubtedly be prominent as the Olympics unfold. When the Olympic torch toured the earthquake-ravaged province just...
View ArticleOlympics Leaves Positive Legacies for Some Groups
Despite the negative news about the government’s failure to permit protests and a crackdown on dissenting voices ahead of the Olympics, the AP reports on the ways that the Olympics may bring positive...
View ArticleRepression and a Gutless IOC
This is Financial Times’ Editorial: China has also broken its promise to allow “complete freedom” to the media. No one expected the domestic media suddenly to be unshackled for the Olympics – the...
View ArticleChina Confiscates Bibles From American Christians
From AP: Chinese customs officials confiscated more than 300 Bibles on Sunday from four American Christians who arrived in a southwestern city with plans to distribute them, the group’s leader said....
View ArticleUS Urges China to Release Eight Americans
From AFP: The United States on Saturday urged China to release immediately eight American nationals detained after pro-Tibet protests in Beijing during the Olympic Games. “We have asked for their...
View ArticleDid the Games Improve Rights in China?
The BBC looks at whether the Olympics had the positive impact on the rights situation in China that many observers hoped for: The immediate impact was both positive and negative. On the plus side,...
View ArticleAnn Kent: China’s Thin Veil of Compliance
From The Canberra Times: Why the official paranoia, why the theatre, why the intense security which made life so difficult? The need for security against international terrorism, while legitimate to a...
View ArticleLeading Chinese Dissident Claims Freedom of Speech Worse than Before Olympics
The Telegraph interviews law professor He Weifang: He Weifang, a celebrated law professor and lead signatory to last year’s Charter 08 petition calling for democratic reforms in China, said the ruling...
View ArticleDetentions Illustrate Limits of Free Speech in China
In the run-up to the Olympic Games in Beijing a year ago, there was much talk that playing host to the Games would force China to become more open and respectful of human rights, especially freedom of...
View ArticleLife On The Outside
On Monday, The New Yorker’s Evan Osnos linked back to a 2007 article in the magazine by Jianying Zha. This described her brother’s nine-year detention for subversion and, in Osnos’ words, “remains the...
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