China: Crackdown Violates Olympic Promises

In addition to the sharp deterioration of the situation of human rights defenders and dissidents, Human Rights Watch also noted a host of serious and uncorrected problems linked to the preparation of the Games, including forced evictions, land seizures, suppression of petitioners, closure of migrant children schools, heightened internet censorship, and the use of “hard-strike” anti-crime campaigns to prepare the eviction from Beijing of undocumented rural migrant workers, beggars, vagrants, and sex workers.

In another disturbing development, Human Rights Watch said that the repression of dissidents and human rights activists has broadened in recent months to include systematic intimidation, surveillance, and confinement of dissidents’ close relatives. Such tactics keep the dissidents’ cases out of sight and prevent relatives from mounting legal challenges.

With just six months to go before the Olympics open in Beijing on August 8, a systematic crackdown on dissent has significantly worsened respect for fundamental rights in China, Human Rights Watch said today.

“Beijing has given virtually no signs that it intends to keep the promises made to the international community in exchange for hosting the Games,” said Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “On the contrary, we have witnessed a systematic effort to silence, suppress and repress Chinese citizens who are trying to push the government into greater respect for fundamental rights.”

Human Rights Watch pointed to a growing pattern of using loosely defined subversion charges to suppress dissidents and activists ahead of the Games. On February 4, the writer LŸ Gengsong was sentenced to four years in prison for “inciting subversion against state power,” becoming the sixth high profile dissident in less than a year to be arrested or sentenced under these charges.

Posted by Dilated_Rebel
Born and raised very humbly in a “small town” in southern California, I was a product of different worlds. Literally, part of my family descends from Mexico the rest from Portugal and Uruguay. This mixture had kept me from supporting any racist psyche found...