(Washington, DC—January 1, 2008) Radio Free Asia broadcast the following stories, and more, in December:
...RFA Reports on beating and hunger strike of prominent civil rights lawyer in China...
December 28 -- RFA Mandarin aired story [text in English/Mandarin] on prominent Chinese civil rights lawyer Guo Feixiong who was beaten in prison during his hunger strike, as told to RFA by his wife and sister. “He was beaten Dec. 18, the fifth day after he entered the prison in Meizhou. A fellow prisoner beat him while more than 200 other prisoners looked on,” Guo’s wife, Zhang Qing, said. Guo Feixiong is serving a five-year sentence for conducting illegal business activities, after publishing a book about a political scandal and helping villagers lead a campaign to oust local officials accused of corruption.
...RFA Reports on Cambodian land disputes...
December 27 -- RFA Khmer aired story [text in English/Khmer] on land disputes in the northwestern Banteay Meanchey province’s Palelay village, where several hundred villagers faced down armed police threatening deadly force. Villagers scuffled with police, who want to evict them, during a protest against their presence in Palelay village, after police began dismantling their homes by force Dec. 20, a spokesman for the protesters said. Such scenes have echoed in violent clashes between villagers and authorities around Cambodia during several weeks in December, in which at least eight people were detained.
...RFA Reports on protests in Chinese Village of Dongzhou...
December 26 -- RFA Mandarin aired story [text in English/Mandarin] on the continued protests in the Chinese village of Dongzhou. Security forces including roughly 2,000 armed police blocked the road to the power station in Dongzhou, a fishing village where three men were shot dead two years ago when police cracked down on a protest against the electricity pylon. Residents say the actual death toll was higher, and they are enraged at what they regard as meager compensation for land expropriated by the government to build the plant. Witnesses told RFA that police fired multiple rounds of tear gas to disperse crowds of protesters.
...RFA Reports on human traffickers...
December 21 -- RFA Korea interviewed [text in English/Korean] a North Korean defector in the Chinese city of Dandong, who said that human traffickers in China push addictive drugs on women fleeing North Korea to make them submissive. “Brokers force North Korean women defectors to take illegal drugs,” said the woman, identified only by her surname, Lee, who defected North Korea to China in search of a better life, only to be passed from human smugglers to bride traffickers. Lee told RFA: “All of them end up shooting up drugs…The same happened to me. The reason why the brokers do that is that they are afraid that we might get scared and resist, and that is why they give us drugs, to break our will.” Lee told RFA.
...RFA Reports on turbulent year in China...
December 21 -- RFA Cantonese and Mandarin reported [text in English/Cantonese/Mandarin] on China’s turbulent end to a troubled year, with people detained across the country in connection with mass civil rights activities ranging from land disputes, to complaints against the government, to industrial action. Police chief Zhou Yongkang said that “actively preventing and properly handling” mass incidents was the main task for his Ministry of Public Security this year. But in the space of just a week, more than a dozen riots, strikes, and demonstrations were reported by RFA’s Mandarin and Cantonese services.
...RFA Reports on Tibet clashes...
December 19 -- RFA Tibet aired a story [text in English/Tibetan] on Chinese authorities in the western Tibetan Autonomous Region who detained two more monks who refused to take part in a political campaign to criticize the Dalai Lama. This followed clashes between local people and armed police, according to sources in the region. "These two monks flatly refused to criticize the Dalai Lama," a fellow monk from the Jesho Baikar monastery in Tibet’s Nagchu prefecture told RFA. He added that monks were being “forced to sign and endorse criticisms of the Dalai Lama. If anyone chose not sign the document, they had to pay a fine of 10,000 yuan.”
...RFA Reports on tension between Vietnam and China over Spratly Islands...
December 13-- RFA Vietnam aired story [text in English/Vietnamese] on the intensified war of words between China and Vietnam over a disputed chain of islands in the South China Sea, with Beijing's announcement that an anti-China protest in Hanoi had damaged bilateral ties. Several hundred Vietnamese staged a rare public demonstration Dec. 9 near the Chinese Embassy in Hanoi to protest China’s claim over the uninhabited but potentially resource-rich Spratly and Paracel islands.
...RFA Reports on drop in Burma exam applications...
December 6 -- RFA Burma aired story [text in Burmese] of a stunning 90 percent drop in Sangha religious exam applications by student monks in the Buddhist centers of Mandalay and Pakokku. Sources inside Burma say the student monks, who were required to register Dec. 7 for the March 8 exam, are reluctant to submit the four required passport photos and personal biographies to register for the exams—since the military authorities arrested a number of monks during the September 2007 uprising based on precisely these materials. Many of the young monks also lost time in their monastic studies as a result of the massive demonstrations and deadly crackdown, with a number of them fleeing to avoid nighttime raids on monasteries and possible arrest.
...RFA Reports on Lao land concession to China...
December 5-- RFA Lao aired story [text in English/Lao] on a major Lao government land concession to Chinese investors to develop a Suzhou-style “model city” on the outskirts of the country’s capital, Vientiane, according to a well-placed source in Laos. Under the terms of the agreement, China will hold the site—several hundred hectares around the That Luang Buddhist monument—on a 100-year lease, with permission to develop surrounding marshlands, a Lao government official told RFA.
...RFA Reports on Uyghur public corruptions allegations...
December 4 -- RFA Uyghur interviewed [text in English/Uyghur] the cultural bureau chief of Charkilik county, Ming Hangao, to investigate claims that he was collecting money from tourists and failing to protect valuable cultural relics in the Ancient Kiroran city. The Kiroran site is rich in cultural relics and well-known to world archeological and historical circles. After reports that the site was badly damaged by visitors and tomb robbers, RFA interviewed Mr. Hangao.
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www.rfa.org/english/ -- Radio Free Asia’s English and native language homepage
www.rfa.org/english/multimedia/- Radio Free Asia’s blogs, slideshows, and videos illustrating news events from across East Asia
