Missing Before Action

Following a call for peaceful protests in China, Beijing is arresting and disappearing activists in perhaps the most exhaustive crackdown in recent memory. Here are their stories.

BY RENEE XIA | MARCH 1, 2011

 

Shortly after Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak was forced to step down, an anonymous call began to circulate through Chinese microblogs for citizens to participate in "Jasmine Revolution" protests. The demonstrations, which took place on Feb. 20 and Feb. 27 in several large Chinese cities, attracted a small but determined cohort of Chinese people "taking a walk" and "gathering to watch" as a peaceful show of support for pro-democracy movements in the Middle East -- and for expanding employment opportunities, protecting housing rights, and opposing official corruption in China. President Hu Jintao labeled the call for protests "socially destabilizing," and Chinese authorities responded with a sweeping pre-emptive strike against anyone they identified as likely to take part. That included hundreds of human rights activists, lawyers, and pro-democracy dissidents from across the country. Police used violence, arbitrary detention, "disappearances," and other forms of harassment and intimidation to silence their voices. Although the full scope of police action is difficult to trace, signs are emerging that the ongoing crackdown may be one of the severest in the past few years.

In the last two weeks, in several cities, police have criminally detained at least six activists for "endangering state security" and at least five others without formal charges. Police have raided the residences of at least ten individuals, confiscating laptops, computers, cell phones, and books. More than 100 individuals told my organization, Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD), that they had been questioned, threatened, put under house arrest, or forced to go on police-escorted "tourism" outings in recent days. Additionally, one activist was detained in a mental hospital in Anhui, and one lawyer was severely beaten by unidentified men on his way to a demonstration in Guangzhou.

What follows is a partial list of Chinese activists swept up in the ongoing crackdown.

GOH CHAI HIN/AFP/Getty Images

 

Renee Xia is the international director of Chinese Human Rights Defenders.

JACKO XINJIANG

10:54 PM ET

March 1, 2011

Journalists are still at a

Journalists are still at a loss to explain why 99.9 percent of the population chose not to protest!

 

TOMBOT

11:50 PM ET

March 1, 2011

Jacko forgot to read

Well Jacko, I think you my have missed the point.
The governments over-reaction to the protests, is probably a large part of why people did not show up. After all a woman was arrested just for re-posting the call for action.
My guess is that if you asked 1,000 Chinese about the protests, a few hundred would join. If China actually had a free press, I think the movement would be growing. I don't think China would be in such a tizzy right now, if the gov't believed people were has happy with their rule as you do.

 

NICK_GREEN

3:27 AM ET

March 2, 2011

Jackie Chan: "Chinese people like to be controlled"

The very reason why the vast majority of the Chinese people does not protest may be CULTURAL: The Chinese culture is a Confucan culture that encourages obedience and discipline. Individual freedom is not important for ordinary Chinese, and most Chinese are likely to see freedom and democracy as chaotic and harmful. Therefore, the Chinese people prefer to be controlled and even tamed by the strong government because they think they do not know how to behave in a free environment.

 

CHOPSTIK

3:15 PM ET

March 2, 2011

Chinese people do NOT like to be controlled

If your premise were true, then Taiwan would not be what it is today. The comments you reference by Mr. Chan were a failed attempt at trying to generalize and stereotype a behavior that others cannot be bothered to look into deeply enough to understand. I will not attempt to offer similar generalizations here, but the reality is that Chinese people - like people everywhere throughout the world - want to be free to make their own choices and decisions just the same as everyone else does. They are not slaves to "Confucian" ideals any more than those in the Middle East are slaves to "Islamist" ideology.

There are many reasons why China is not a "free democracy", too many to be listed here and even then I could not guarantee there are not more that do not come to mind. Everyone has their reasons for why they act as they do. To be a dissident in China requires a great deal more strength and ability to withstand pressure than it does in the West. Not many people have that strength. What is said in public is not always what is said in private. You would do better to not judge the Chinese by the single negative stereotype of a movie star.

 

PUBLICUS

1:44 PM ET

March 3, 2011

The difference

Taiwan as in the cases of the Philippines, Japan, South Korea among others began as dictatorships but under the security umbrella and prompting of the United States eventually evolved into democracies of one kind or another. Singapore is perhaps the strongest ally of the United States in East Asia-South Asia but is so small (in population and military capability) that the fact easily goes unnoticed. Then of course there were the Brits in Hong Kong and the Portuguese in Macau.

Conversely, the mainland of China remained isolated and ingrown. Deng's so called opening of 30 years ago was for economics only as the CCP continues to censor (FaceBook, Twitter, UTube etc etc) the Chinese mind from any possible influence of the world at large. The Chinese today get only what the CCP wants them to get and only from the CCP itself. That's the vital difference.

 

MARTY MARTEL

11:41 AM ET

March 2, 2011

Thank U. S. for survival of Chinese Communist dictatorship

By all appearances and even facts, today’s Chinese society is far more happier and wealthier, thanks to the economic lifeline that U. S. gave to China’s Communist dictators way back in 1972.

As such, that Nixon-Kissinger embrace and subsequest US ations have strengthened Communist Party’s hold on Chinese society by allowing it to adopt a capitalist model under party and state authority. Opening of Western markets has afforded Chinese Communist dictatorship to employ millions of Chinese, thereby preventing any popular outburst due to economic hardships that is causing lot of current Middle East unrest.

Had it not been for that Nixon embrace in 1972, China’s economic progress would have been far more slower with all the US, West European and East Asian markets closed to cheap Chinese products. Had it not been for that Nixon embrace, China’s technological progress would have been far slower in the absence of West’s technology transfers. Had it not been for that Nixon embrace, China’s military progress would have been far slower in the absence of huge forex reserves that China accumulated from the massive exports of cheap Chinese products and China used those forex reserves to acquire latest military technology.

China’s rise to super power status to challenge US is a fitting monument to the much-celebrated foresight of Nixon-Kissinger to embrace China to counter Soviet Union in 1972 just as 9/11 attacks is a fitting monument to the Reagan embrace of Islamic fundamentalists to counter Soviet Union in 1980s Afghanistan.

 

JOURNEYEAST.ORG

3:26 PM ET

March 2, 2011

I've marched in a protest

I've marched in a protest against the Iraq war in Beijing back in 2003 when I was a liberal Bush hating anger-naut. The Chinese government allowed for this and it was in the media.

The calibur of folks who were marching were hippy blowhards who's lifes acheivement could be better measured in the number of bongs smoked..

That being said, the government allowed for two protests, one for foreigners, and another for Chinese people.. The one with foreigners required 160 people no, more, no less, and it went off without a hitch.

Same requirement for the Chinese protest. Funny thing though, the rally point and the time were changed on such short notice and without warning, that the Chinese organizers never met the required quota and they weren't allowed to protest.

With China's recent affluence, you aren't going to see the levels of discontent in China that would rile Egypt or Libya and ANY media that suggests otherwise is sensationalizing and making up some tall piles of excretement.