Links » Cream » Government Accused of Obstructing Bo Xilai Defense

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• Government Accused of Obstructing Bo Xilai Defense
• Wukan Official Resigns, Rips Village Leader
• Photo: Freeway Talk, by Mark Hobbs
• Ministry of Truth: No Bad News on People’s Daily
• Word of the Week: Don’t Understand Actual Situation
• After Forced Evictions, a Nightmare of Red Tape

Government Accused of Obstructing Bo Xilai Defense Posted: 25 Oct 2012 12:07 AM PDT As Bo Xilai awaits criminal charges, family and friends have accused the Chinese government of setting obstacles in the path of any independent legal defense. From William Wan at The Washington Post: Bo's immediate family has been warned not to hire any lawyers, according to two people close to his wife's family. And two lawyers retained by his mother-in-law on his behalf have been unable to visit the formerly powerful party chief, they said, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of government reprisal. […] According to others involved, the lawyers plan to go to Bo's prison in coming days in a last-ditch effort to see him if authorities do not respond to their request for access to him. Rejecting such face-to-face meetings has become a standard way for the Chinese government to thwart independent representation in politically sensitive cases that could embarrass the party. Wan adds that Bo's wife Gu Kailai, who has already received a suspended death sentence, has also been kept in a secret location and denied family visits. See more on Bo Xilai via CDT. © Mengyu Dong for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: Bo Xilai, Chongqing, gu kailai, lawyers, legal defense, legal system, political scandal, trials Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Wukan Official Resigns, Rips Village Leader Posted: 24 Oct 2012 09:09 PM PDT With some villagers in Wukan conceding that "the honeymoon is over" as their democratically elected leaders grapple with the challenge of resolving the grievances that sparked mass land grab protests late last year, David Bandurski of The China Media Project reports that one such official has publicly announced his resignation: An outspoken youth leader during protests in Wukan last year over corruption and land grabs by local officials, Zhuang Liehong was detained on December 3, 2011, and held for 20 days. The standoff between villagers and local authorities worsened through December, until provincial officials finally intervened to broker a compromise resulting in free and transparent elections in March this year. … According to today's Weibo post by Zhang Jianxing, Zhuang submitted his resignation to the village committee on October 21 because he felt he was "unable to handle the wishes of the villagers from within the village committee." Zhang added: "Lately, the upheaval in Wukan is quite serious. Lin Zuluan (林祖銮) [the leader of the revolt, now the elected Party chief] avoids going to work. . . Is change happening all over again in Wukan? Bandurski also included a photo of Zhuang's resignation letter, which had emerged on the Weibo account of Wukan resident Zhang Jianxing. Zhuang specifically calls out Lin Zuluan, the man who led last year's protests and was selected as both Wukan party chief and then head of the village committee in the March elections. Zhuang Liehong had been one of the more vocal activists in Wukan, both during the protests and as a participant in the village's democracy experiment. Bandurski cites a March article in the Sydney Morning Herald which mentions Zhuang: "I will retrieve the land that rightfully belongs to Wukan villagers!" said Zhuang Liehong, 28, in a speech punctuated with fist-pumps that whipped the crowd into a frenzy. Mr Zhuang, who was also involved in the protests, told The Saturday Age that he was detained by police for 20 days, and threatened with being "hung up in the air and beaten half to death" for failing to co-operate. Radio Free Asia also quoted Zhuang in April, after Guangdong vice provincial secretary Zhu Mingguo promised to return some of their lost farmland by May 1, as saying that the committee had not received much help in reclaiming the land: "It has been tough," he said. "The land was sold off by people who were previously in charge here, so it's a question of what evidence to show and what tactics to employ to get it back from the people [who bought it]." He said the committee had received scant help from other officials. "Everything depends on us here at the village committee," he said. "We can't get the land back, so we'll have to see what the [provincial] government is made of." As recent frustrations indicate, the May 1 deadline came and went without the return of the villagers land. See also previous CDT coverage of last year's Wukan protests. © Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: democracy, Guangdong, land grab protests, Lin Zuluan, microblogging, sina weibo, Wukan, Zhuang Liehong Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Photo: Freeway Talk, by Mark Hobbs Posted: 24 Oct 2012 06:58 PM PDT Freeway Talk © Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Ministry of Truth: No Bad News on People’s Daily Posted: 24 Oct 2012 12:36 PM PDT The following example of censorship instructions, issued to the media and/or Internet companies by various central (and sometimes local) government authorities, has been leaked and distributed online. Chinese journalists and bloggers often refer to those instructions as "Directives from the Ministry of Truth." CDT has collected the selections we translate here from a variety of sources and has checked them against official Chinese media reports to confirm their implementation. Since directives are sometimes communicated orally to journalists and editors, who then leak them online, the wording published here may not be exact. The original publication date is noted after the directives; the date given may indicate when the directive was leaked, rather than when it was issued. CDT does its utmost to verify dates and wording, but also takes precautions to protect the source. Last June, People's Insurance Company of China (PICC) applied to sell its 55% stock in China Huawen Investment Holdings in preparation for an IPO, which includes holdings of the state-run newspaper People's Daily and its subsidiary companies. In the process, PICC claimed that People's Daily owed $501 mil to Huawen (abbreviated Huakong in the directive below), a charge the newspaper denied. People's Daily agreed to transfer its 25% holding in Huawen to PICC last December [zh]. PICC currently plans to IPO at the end of the year. State Council Information Office: 1. Without exception, do not report on anything related to the People's Daily and Huakong Co. 2. Without exception, any negative news involving the People's Daily and its subsidiary newspapers, periodicals, companies and work units which has not yet received the approval of People's Daily leadership must not be published. (October 24, 2012) 1.关于人民日报华控公司一事一律不要报道； 2.凡涉及人民日报社及所属子报刊、公司、单位之负面新闻，未经人民日报社领导同意，一律不得刊发。   © Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: censorship, Directives from the Ministry of Truth, Huawen, media censorship, Ministry of Truth, people's daily, PICC, propaganda Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

Word of the Week: Don’t Understand Actual Situation Posted: 24 Oct 2012 12:00 PM PDT Editor's Note: The CDT Grass-Mud Horse Lexicon is a glossary of terms created by Chinese netizens and frequently encountered in online political discussions. These are the words of China's online "resistance discourse," used to mock and subvert the official language around censorship and political correctness. The Word of the Week features Lexicon entries old, new and timely. If you are interested in participating in this project by submitting and/or translating terms, please contact the CDT editors at CDT [at] chinadigitaltimes [dot] net. 不明真相 (bù míng zhēn xiàng): don't understand the actual situation Invented character combining the four characters in the phrase "don't understand the actual situation." This stock phrase is often used by the government and official media to describe participants in "mass incidents" (群体事件 qúntǐ shìjiàn), such as riots and protests. It suggests that those who participate in mass incidents do so not because of any real grievances, but because they have been duped by a few schemers with "ulterior motives." Even state-run media have questioned this demeaning term. In July 2009, Xinhua ran an editorial suggesting that this phrase should not be the immediate explanation for all mass incidents. The Southern Metropolis Daily commented in August of that year: Whenever there is a mass incident, some government agencies will always issue statements to the effect that "people who didn't understand the actual situation" were incited by "those with ulterior motives." But this pretext is lifeless and unconvincing. 每有群体性事件，一些政府机关的文宣必定是"不明真相"的群众是被"别有用心"的人蛊惑的。可这套说辞却是最苍白也没有说服力的。 Netizens have since co-opted the phrase. © Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: don't understand the actual situation, grass-mud horse lexicon, mass incidents, netizens, Southern Metropolis Daily, surround and watch, word of the week, Xinhua Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

After Forced Evictions, a Nightmare of Red Tape Posted: 24 Oct 2012 01:42 AM PDT Forced demolitions have been labelled China's greatest source of social unrest; Amnesty International reports that evictions have given rise to over 40 self-immolation protests in recent years. At 2Non—"Non Fiction Non Profit", a new China-focused non-profit media organisation—ChinaGeeks' Charles Custer tells the stories of some of the many victims who have struggled to win legal redress, and examines the roots of local governments' "addiction" to land seizures. On June 30, 2003, the deputy chair of the Wuxi New District Court burst through the door of Wu Xingyuan's family home. Following the court official were police officers, demolition workers and other men Wu couldn't identify. They began carrying Wu's possessions out of the house. Within just three hours, the building had been razed to the ground, and most of the Wu family's possessions had disappeared. But that was just the beginning. Nearly a decade later, Wu's case remains unresolved. His family, which had been operating a highly profitable business out of Wu's sizable home, is now significantly poorer. And Wu himself has grown tired and more than a little paranoid after waging a decade-long battle for justice with authorities. Wu's troubles began in the spring of 2003, when local authorities decided to demolish his house. Wu claims that the decision to demolish his home was an act of revenge because he had previously reported a local Party official for corruption. This claim proved impossible to confirm — we were unable to get in touch with the specific officials Wu named and the Wuxi police declined to comment — but whatever the reason for the demolition, it's clear Wu was offered very unfavorable terms. In compensation for his 537 square meter house, he was told he could have one 120 square meter apartment. "Even Hu Jintao wouldn't make that deal," Wu told us. "No one would agree to that." During the actual demolition, Wu and his family were physically restrained, but as soon as they got free they went to court. The first case opened in July, and even though the demolition had been illegal (officials had failed to obtain the proper permits) and Wu had proof that many of his possessions had mysteriously gone missing the day of the family's forced relocation, the court found against him. Well-known singer Zuo Xiao, meanwhile, is fighting to stop the demolition of his home in Changzhou. China Media Project's Comic China series includes a cartoon posted to Sina Weibo in support, showing the singer brandishing a megaphone and a clenched fist on the roof of a building marked for destruction. © Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us Post tags: black jail, compensation, forced demolition, forced eviction, land disputes, land seizure, legal system, self-immolation Download Tools to Circumvent the Great Firewall

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