Meanwhile in China...

According to today’s Guardian Chinese democracy activist Liu Xianbin (no relative of Nobel laureate Liu Xiaobo)has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for advocating government change in online articles.

The trial came amid a crackdown on activism in China in which dozens of lawyers and activists have vanished, been interrogated, held under house arrest or criminally detained for subversion.

Liu Xianbin, who has previously spent a decade in prison, was found guilty of inciting subversion of state power after a trial that lasted just a few hours, his wife, Chen Mingxian, said.

Chinese law says inciting subversion carries a penalty of up to five years in prison, but a court can impose a longer sentence if the offence is deemed particularly grave.

"The 10-year sentence to me, because we've already been through 10 years … is a repeat of the painful process, one in which I can only watch and wait anxiously," said Chen, who is a schoolteacher.

Liu was a founding member of the China Democracy party and was convicted in 1999 of subversion of state power and sentenced to 13 years in prison. He was released in November 2008.
After his release, Liu continued to be involved in several high-profile human rights activities. He was a signatory to the Charter 08 manifesto, which called for an end to single-party rule and advocated democratic political reforms.

What can one add to this? China’s atrocious human rights record speaks for itself

Chinese food scandal protestor jailed

Today’s Telegraph reports that Zhao Lianhai, who created a website to highlight the plight of children poisoned in a major food adulteration scandal in China, has been jailed for 2 1/2 years.


Zhao created the site in 2009 after his son was poisoned after being fed adulterated formula milk. He was one of about 300,000 Chinese toddlers who were poisoned (of which at least six of them died) by milk that contained melamine, an industrial chemical that was added to make the milk appear to contain more protein than was actually the case.

The website quickly became a focal point for thousands of parents who were outraged at the crisis, and that the issue had initially been covered up.

As more and more parents began to call for justice and compensation, and Mr Zhao began to press their case publicly, he came to the attention of the Chinese authorities.

Last November, he was arrested by the police and then charged in March with "creating a disturbance". His lawyer, Li Fangping, said the evidence for the charge had been that Mr Zhao had given a media interview on a public pavement, held a dinner in a restaurant for a dozen parents of other victims, and that he had held up a small sign in protest outside a trial of milk company executives responsible for the poisoning.

As his sentence was announced, Mr Zhao protested in court, stripping off his prisoner's uniform and refusing to be handcuffed. "I am not guilty!" he said. Mr Li said he would appeal the sentence, and that Mr Zhao was in "quite good health, but anxious. He has not seen his wife and two children for almost a year."

Mr Zhao has already served one year of his sentence, and will now have another year-and-a-half of prison time.

Three people have been sentenced to death for their role in the toxic milk case, and the general manager and chairwoman of Sanlu, the milk company at the heart of the scandal, was given a life sentence. Dozens of officials, dairy executives and farmers have been punished for allowing the contamination to take place.

What to say? Words fail.

A shock rise in extreme sport deaths in Chinese prisons

The Australian carries an article about a worrying rise in extreme sports deaths in custodial centres in China.

It is believed that the Chinese authorities had introduced such activities to facilitate the rehabilitation process. Sadly the policy has had tragic events.

It was in the detention centre of Puning County in Yunnan where LI Qiaoming suffered fatal injuries from bumping into a wall while playing blind man's buff with fellow inmates. (Note: blind man’s buff is considered a full contact sport in China)

Yu Weiping died in Gaocun , Wendeng City, Shandong province. His family found small holes in his chest, which the detention centre claimed were caused by a stray spurt during competition acne

Well maybe not, but blind man’s buff and picking at acne spots were given as causes of death in a report by the Zhejiang Daily which has compiled brief accounts of such deaths, and has asked tough questions about the Detention Centre Management Bureau of the Public Security Ministry.

Other cases included a 57 year old man who died "by showering" and a student who died because "his sleeping position was improper".

A former director-general of the Detention Centre Management Bureau told the newspaper: "I listen (to these cases) and think it's ridiculous. Most are the result of beatings."

Well I’ll go to the foot of my stairs! I suppose blind man’s buff is a bit more original than “fell down the stairs” ...

Meanwhle in Sichuan

The Times reports a sign of China’s increasingly hard line against dissent. Activist Tan Zuoren has been jailed for five years after he investigated whether shoddy construction contributed to deaths of thousands of schoolchildren in an earthquake in Sichuan province two years ago.

However the charges related to involved “inciting subversion of state power” because of essays in which he criticized the bloody crackdown against pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989.

Friends and his lawyers believe that Mr Tan’s efforts to document and produce an independent report on the collapse of school buildings in the Sichuan earthquake in May 2008, when some 90,000 people died, were the real reason for the sentence.

The sentence against Mr Tan was the maximum possible for his crime. The severity of the term highlighted the increasingly tough approach adopted by the Government in recent months against any hint of dissent.

Mr Tan was the first person in a decade to be sentenced for actions linked to the 1989 crackdown. Most supporters and human rights activists were in little doubt that it was his attempts to document whether schools had been built on the cheap and were thus particularly vulnerable when the earthquake hit that had angered the authorities.

Last year, a court in Chengdu sentenced activist Huang Qi to three years for “revealing state secrets” after he tried to gather information on faulty construction of school buildings that critics say contributed to the children’s deaths. More than 5,000 of the dead were children.

What can you say? Words fail.

Christmas – a time to jail dissidents

The Guardian reports that Liu Xiaobo, one of China’s most prominent human rights activists was sentenced to 11 years in prison. Liu is the founder of the Charter 08 campaign for constitutional reform and was given what is a draconian sentence yesterday on Christmas Day, clearly in an attempt to minimise international attention.

Following a year in detention and a two-hour trial, it took the No 1 intermediate people's court in Beijing just 10 minutes to read out the 11-page sentence. Liu was found guilty on Wednesday of subversion, the vaguely defined charge that Communist party leaders often use to imprison political opponents. litigation rights".

"We cannot accept this sentence because we have argued in court that Liu is innocent," said one of his lawyers, Mo Shaoping. His wife could not be reached as her mobile phone was strangely out of order. Amnesty International expressed outrage at the sentence, which it said was the harshest in 35 subversion cases since 2003.

Outside the courtroom and in the Chinese blogosphere, Liu's supporters have initiated a yellow ribbon campaign for his release. "China's Mandela was born this
Christmas," wrote the influential blogger Beichen.

Liu, a former Beijing Normal University professor, is a leading intellectual critic
of the repressive Chinese government. Liu was previously imprisoned for 20 months for taking part in the 1989 student-led protests in Tiananmen Square.

He told friends that he knew the risk of imprisonment when he drafted Charter 08, which demands the open election of public officials, freedom of religion and expression, and the abolition of subversion laws. Liu was arrested last December before the Charter was made public. Other drafters and signatories have been harassed. The mainstream media have been forbidden to cover the subject and censors have blocked many related internet sites and articles. Many Chinese are unaware that it exists.

Liu’s imprisonment is an utter disgrace The Chinese Government looks to have created an icon and focus for protest, perhaps even of the status of Aung San Suu Kyi or, as the Chinese blogger says, Nelson Mandela

Is a new AIDS-like disease emerging in China?

I found the link to a Hungarian website called RSOE Emergency Disaster Information Service via the Fortean Times breaking news section. Sitting among the stories about plans to cull the Scottish wild wallaby population, gay penguin adoption and witch bottles a story about a new, more infectious AIDS-like epidemic in China stuck out like a sore thumb. The Fortean Times may be a journal of strange phenomena but it is not a "tinfoil hat" publication like, say Nexus.

The summary page indicates that the disease is statewide and at least 600 people have been infected. The event description page provides this information:

A new infectious disease is spreading in large areas of Mainland China. Symptoms are similar to AIDS but it spreads faster between family members, even via bodily fluids like saliva. Mr. Lin from Yunnan Province caught a disease last May, unlike anything he had seen before. "This disease destroys immunity cells just like AIDS. The lowest amount of immunity cells of some patients is only 200, mine is 400. The doctor couldn't find many antibodies, so he called it 'Fear of AIDS' disease."

Preliminary research shows that patients have symptoms of fatigue, chronic diarrhea, swollen lymph nodes, and weakened immunity. But doctors cannot find any sign of the HIV virus. "A huge number of people caught the nameless virus but the doctors cannot make a thorough check. So they make a conclusion that it's a 'Fear of AIDS' disease. The symptoms are very much like those of AIDS."

Because the Chinese Ministry of Health doesn't recognize the disease, it has not carried out any investigation. However, patients feel very horrified and sad when they see their family members and friends become infected by coming into contact with their saliva or sweat. "We hope that media reports can pressure the relevant departments to pay more attention to the disease. Do not make any irresponsible conclusions and say it is caused by fear or psychological effect – it is a real virus. Many doctors, including doctors from Beijing also say this is an infectious disease."

Doctors from mainland China also believe patients might catch the disease. However, the exact number of people infected remains unknown and what the mortality rate is, and how many have died from it.

The RSOE site does not seem to be sensationalist and it may well have picked up early indications of a new and highly infectious disease. That said, Chinese doctors have called it a 'Fear of AIDS' disease and this could well be correct for all I know. It would be interesting to see what happens It could be an awful lot of very little of course.

However, new diseases do appear more frequently than we think. Only last week there were reports of a new, Ebola-like disease named LUJO disease (after Lusaka and Johannesburg where the disease struck) which four of the five people who contracted the infection.

Great Firewall of China - update

Hmm the Poor Mouth now seems to be blocked. Perhaps my cats are just too subversive...

Great Firewall of China

The Great Firewall of China allows you to test any website and see if it is banned in China. This blog is visible in China plenty but other blogs are banned.

Thanks go to Matt An Insomniac for drawing my attention to the Great Firewall of China in the first place.

Another date for the Diary: Terracotta Army Exhibition, British Museum

Time to order some more exhibition tickets – The British Museum is holding a major exhibition of artefacts buried with Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of China (247-221 BC). Described as the biggest ever exhibition of treasures ever lent overseas from the emperor's burial site in Xian. The exhibition will not only include examples of the famous terracotta warriors but also ceramic bureaucrats, entertainers and birds.

Neil MacGregor, the British Museum's director, said: "We are delighted to be able to give visitors the opportunity to see these important and iconic objects. They are key objects for understanding the history of China from 221BC to the present day….This is the man who made China, created the idea of China, created the oldest political entity that survives anywhere in the world.”

The existence of a burial tomb for Qin Shi huang was known to scholars through the words of historian Sima Qian, but it wasn’t until 1974 that peasants digging a well came accidentally rediscovered the location of his tomb site which measures 50 square kilometres - about the size of Cambridge.

The Exhibition will be at the British Museum from 13 September until 6 April 2008. Interestingly it will be followed by an exhibition dedicated to Hadrian to examine why the Chinese empire survived for centuries while the Roman empire declined.