In the latest wrap-up from news outlets and bloggers across the globe:

CHINA RIGHTS LAWYER IN ONE-MAN CRUSADE FOR FAIRER FUTURE
AFP – In a small courtyard building a stone's throw from Tiananmen Square and the political centre of China, veteran rights lawyer Mo Shaoping dreams of the day his nation will be ruled by law and not by men …

US BUSINESSMAN FREED AFTER 10 YEARS IN CHINA JAIL
Reuters – A U.S. businessman has been paroled after spending more than 10 years in a Chinese prison on charges of tax evasion and fraud, in a case top U.S. officials raised in talks with China on human rights …

PAPER SAYS HK REPORTER DENIED ENTRY TO BEIJING
Reuters – A reporter for Hong Kong's populist Apple Daily newspaper, known for its critical editorial line on China, was denied entry into Beijing this week, the paper's chief editor said …

WIKIPEDIA CHINESE VERSION UNBLOCKED
Danwei Blog – Most of Wikipedia was unblocked in April this year but the Chinese language sections of the website were not accessible …

"INFORMATION OPENNESS" A GROWING TOPIC FOR CHINA'S MEDIA
China Media Project – Since national legislation on government information release took effect in China on May 1 this year, Chinese media have taken to the topic of information openness in a big way …

BUSH TO ATTEND BEIJING OPENING CEREMONY, WHITE HOUSE SAYS
New York Times Blog – The White House today announced that President George W. Bush will attend the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympics …

CHINA, THIS IS THE WORLD
The Australian – We should all wish the People's Republic of China success as host of the 2008 Olympics, for which it has made heroic efforts to prepare itself …

CHINA MOVEST TO SACK OFFICIALS BLAMED FOR RIOT
Reuters – China moved to sack two law-and-order officials blamed for mishandling a riot in the country's southwest, saying that broader abuses of power lay behind the mass outrage, state media reported on Friday …

Part one

In the intro, Riz Khan says:

" … Critics see many dangers looming, for example complaints that China is dumping low-priced goods in Africa, pillaging the continent's natural resources and ignoring human rights violations and other humanitarian concerns.

"Supporters, however, point out that due to China the overall economy of Sub-Saharan Africa has grown by an average of 6 per cent a year since 2004 … "

Called in to debate the issue are former US ambassador to Ethiopia David Shinn, investigative journalist Richard Behar, and John Afele, a former director of the International Program for Africa at University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada.

Part two

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has imposed the narrowest interpretation of the Olympic Charter since the Mexico summer Olympics in 1968, and we're worried Australian athletes will be subjected to human rights violations.

The Fundamental Principles of Olympism state the goal is to 'place sport at the service of the harmonious development of man, with a view to promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity,' says Amnesty International's China campaign coordinator Sophie Peer.

But in the case of the Beijing Olympics just the opposite is happening.

Protect athletes

The IOC isn't doing enough to protect athletes from Chinese policies which breach international human rights standards and routinely undermine human dignity, says Sophie Peer.

We believe a number of objectives in the IOC's mission and role mandate are being directly contradicted in the current interpretation of the Olympic Charter.

Have a look at our media release for more information.

We call on all individuals, organisations and governments to make sure China honours the human rights promises it made in its bid to host the Games.

In the latest wrap-up from news outlets and bloggers across the globe:

CHINESE BLOGGERS SCALE THE 'GREAT FIREWALL' IN RIOT’S AFTERMATH
Wall St Journal – To slip past Internet censors squashing reports of a weekend riot in China's Guizhou province, some bloggers have started writing backward …

SEARCH ENGINES' CHINESE SELF CENSORSHIP
MIT’s Technology Review – To operate in China, search engine companies based in the United States have built products that cooperate with China's policies of Internet censorship …

SARKOZY NOT WELCOME AT OLYMPICS - POLL
Herald Sun – Nearly 90 per cent of Chinese respondents to an online survey said they oppose French President Nicolas Sarkozy's attendance at the Beijing Olympics, results showed …

RIGHTS ADVOCATES RISK BACKFIRE IN OLYMPIC ACTIVISM
Guardian – Western activists trying to use Beijing's staging of the Olympic games as an opportunity to promote civil rights risk provoking resentment among the Chinese people, U.S. China analysts say …

CHINA-TIBET: MENDING FENCES?
France 24 Video – In a sign of a softening of China's position on Tibet, senior envoys from both sides are holding talks for the second time …

PETITIONERS CHIEF NEARLY PARALYZED WITH TORTURE
Boxun – Liu Jie, who initiated an appeal to the 17th party congress for political reforms last year, was reeducated through labor in Qiqihaer camp, Heilongjiang province …

CHINA'S INSIDE GAME
New York Times – Last week, amid continuing calls from activists in Europe and the United States to boycott the Olympics to protest China’s record on human rights, came a rare rebuke from the International Olympic Committee …

FEMALE JOURNALIST PROSECTUED FOR OFFENDING POLICE
Boxun – Recently journalist Liu who worked for Hebei TV station has got a six- month prison term with six months suspension of execution given by a court in Beijing on charge of offending police last August …

CHAN PICKS FIGHT WITH OLYMPICS PROTESTORS
New Zealand Herald – The Chinese actor and martial artist Jackie Chan, whose latest role is as a spokesman for the Beijing Olympics in August, has described China's human rights record in Tibet as "ancient history" and accused protesters of being attention-grabbing contrarians seeking television fame …

Have a look at this new animation, from Amnesty International's United Kingdom section, highlighting human rights abuses in China in the run-up to the Beijing Olympics.

The animation, dubbed Badminton, is the second of four animations. Note: it’s a bit graphic and may not be suitable for younger children.

"Amnesty is not against the Games going to China but we want people to know what is really going on in the country," said Amnesty's UK campaign director Tim Hancock, at the launch of the animation.

"The Chinese authorities promised when bidding for the Olympics that hosting the Games would improve human rights But things have got worse, not better, in the run-up to Beijing 2008."

Check out this great podcast about the Internet in China. It's from the US's National Public Radio's On The Media program.

NPR says:

" … The internet in China is both censored by the government and used for surveillance, but American companies make the calculation that it is better to be there, albeit in a diminished capacity, than not at all. Nevermind, Chinese internet users are getting organized on the web and the result is real social change …"

It features interviews with Rebecca MacKinnon, former CNN Beijing Bureua chief and now assistant professor at the University of Hong Kong's Journalism and Media Studies Centre, and Jeremy Goldkorn, who runs the Chinese media site Danwei.org.

In the latest wrap-up from news outlets and bloggers across the globe:

OLYMPICS TRIGGERING TRAGIC CHINESE CRACKDOWN: CONGRESSMAN
AFP – A leading US congressman said Tuesday China was carrying out a tragic crackdown to smother dissent during the Olympics, triggering a warning by Beijing to butt out or risk harming Sino-US ties …

RELEASED DISSIDENT VOWS TO APPEAL
Radio Free Asia – Ten years after he helped to found the first serious attempt at a political opposition party in China under Communist Party rule, Zha Jianguo is out of jail …

FACEBOOK GETS POKED IN CHINA
Wall St Journal Blogs – Following Facebook’s recent launch of a Chinese-language version for mainland China, users in some parts of Beijing are finding the site’s homepage inaccessible …

CHINESE SEEK A DAY IN COURT
Wall St Journal – The earthquake that rocked Sichuan province is emerging as an unexpected test of China's evolving legal system …

OLYMPICS COUNTDOWN: CITIZENS LOSE FREEDOM
Boxun – Series of arrests and harassment involving civil rights activists,dissidents,and Christians have taken place to meet a so-called harmonious society upon and during Beijing Olympics …

BOSS HU AND THE PRESS
The China Beat Blog – One June 20, Hu Jintao paid a high profile visit to the People’s Daily. His foray to the editorial offices of the CCP mouthpiece was first announced in the form of what turned out to be all but a Hoax: …

DALAI LAMA/BEIJING TALKS: A GLIMPSE OF LIGHT?
Time Blog – Well, amazing as it may seem to some, I may have made a misjudgment: the Dalai Lama's representatives are here in Beijing meeting with Chinese officials for the next couple of days and there are some signs that they may actually achieve something …

ATHLETES ANNOUNCE OPEN LETTER ON DARFUR AND OLYMPIC TRUCE
New York Times Blog – More than 130 athletes have signed an open letter asking the international community to pressure Sudan for a truce during the Olympics, the activist organization Team Darfur announced at a news conference in Washington …

THOUSANDS MARCH FOR GREATER DEMOCRACY IN HONG KONG
Reuters – Thousands in Hong Kong urged Beijing to grant it greater democracy on Tuesday, with a recent furor over newly appointed political aides stoking perceptions of the unelected government's lack of accountability …

Westerners must look at China in all its diversity, including voices of reason, writes Antony Loewenstein

During last week’s Global Voices Citizen Media Summit in Budapest, Hungary, where I presented a paper on the role of the internet in repressive regimes, there was much discussion about web issues in this Chinese Olympic year. The main conclusion was that the West fundamentally misunderstands the realities of the issue.

Take Isaac Mao, a leading blog pioneer in China. He didn’t deny the reality of major governmental filtering of sensitive material but questioned the response of Western elites to it. “We don’t have professional media in China”, Mao said. Propaganda is the name of the game, but the web is changing the rules.

CNN was accused of showing bias against the Chinese people during the Tibetan protests earlier in the year. A website, anti-CNN.com, was established to counter these perceived inaccuracies. Mao said that CNN, after the ferocious attacks, altered its coverage to better reflect the sensibilities of the Chinese people. Nobody knows if CNN was deliberately smearing China – Hong Kong academic Rebecca MacKinnon said that it might just have been the work of lowly interns at the station – but many speakers, including Mao, said that the West’s obsession with freedom of speech was often distorting our understanding of the situation.

Mao told the 200 activists, dissidents, human rights campaigners, bloggers and journalists from dozens of countries around the world, such as Kenya, Singapore, Iran, Yemen and Pakistan, that in many parts of the world the rule of law and ending corruption were far more important values.

John Kennedy, the leading translator of Chinese blog posts for Global Voices, said that it was important for Westerners to understand that the Chinese blogosphere wasn’t homogenous and displayed far more opinions than many thought. How much do we really know about general Chinese attitudes to Tibetan self-determination? Is the perception of Chinese netizens being thin-skinned really accurate and different to Westerners being attacked by another society and reacting accordingly?

While leading US-based dissident Xiao Qiang argued that the internet this year had played a key role in pushing ideologies and opinions to the extreme, Kennedy reminded us that many Chinese bloggers sided with the protesting Burmese monks in 2007. In other words, it all depends on who is pushing the authoritarianism.

Former CNN journalist Rebecca MacKinnon talked about a study conducted by Dave Lyons on his Mutant Palm blog. It shows how, compared to coverage of the 2004 Athens Games, “practically none of the sites that exist in China, written in English, are linked to or from the major English Olympics sites outside China. China may be coming out to the world this Olympics, but apparently their webpages haven’t.” We ignore Chinese voices at our peril.

Of course, with just over one month until the start of the Beijing Games, China continues to harass dissidents while imposing onerous visa restrictions on visitors. Most China experts at the Budapest conference told me that Beijing would now be expecting fairly negative global press coverage over the coming two months, considering the PR disasters in 2008.

We have to find new ways to better communicate with Chinese netizens and not ask, as MacKinnon said, “who is more brainwashed?” The emergence of websites with “alternative” versions of reality – the Chinese view and the Western-approved version – is a worrying development for a medium that should unite, rather than divide, people.

Antony Loewenstein is a Sydney-based journalist, blogger and author of the forthcoming book, The Blogging Revolution

Being a human rights defender in China can be a dicey endeavour. Here are the stories of three brave men; a farmer, a journalist and a democracy activist.

Lu Banglie is a farmer-turned-activist who for the last decade has been helping protect fellow farmers threatened by developments encroaching on to their land.

The Washington Post has his story:

" … In a country where the Communist Party crushes any attempt at forming associations outside its control, Lu's goal of spreading the word on how to use law books to oppose local leaders amounted to a relatively novel political challenge.

" … His passage from pumpkins to politics was not without cost. Lu has been severely beaten twice by thugs who he said were dispatched by local party authorities eager to cash in on land transactions at the expense of farmers. The Public Security Bureau, he said, still keeps a close watch on his home village …"

Social unrest

For journalist Sun Lin luck has run out.

Just a few days ago he was jailed for four years for "gathering crowds to cause social unrest" and the "illegal possession of firearms".

Sun Lin, who uses the pen name Jie Mu, is a contributor to the US-based Chinese news website Boxun, which is banned in China. His wife, He Fang, who also wrote for Boxun, was released after being given a suspended prison sentence. The pair have been in custody since last May.

Reporters Without Borders says:

" …"Two well-known news website contributors have been given jail terms after an investigation marked by mendacious allegations and a trial marred by irregularities. This is yet another tragic example of the government's inability to tolerate journalists who dare to report news freely, without constraint or censorship." ..."

Protest investigation

And for Yao Lifa things look grim.

The human rights defender and democracy activist was kidnapped last week.

He had been investigating a protest caused by police abuse, and was apparently kidnapped on 26 June by people working for Qianjiang Municipal Government.

Boxun says:

" … His last word sounds being escorted to Jing... , which can be Jingzhou or Jingmen yet not clear so far as he is still missing. Yao's seriously illed mom badly wants help and is waiting for him to be released …"

Phones tapped, homes raided

In China, peaceful human rights defenders risk house arrest, surveillance, imprisonment, torture and even execution.

Sometimes their phones are tapped, their homes raided, their assets frozen, their businesses closed and their relatives are hassled.

The harassment of human rights defenders, particularly those based in Beijing, has increased as the Games have got closer and Amnesty International is worried it will continue during the Olympics.

China is violating international human rights standards and must release every peaceful human rights defender who is in prison.

In the latest wrap-up from news outlets and bloggers across the globe:

CHINA STEPS UP ARRESTS OF NORTH KOREAN REFUGEES, DEFECTORS SAY
Bloomberg – Chinese authorities are intensifying the search for North Korean defectors hiding in the country, offering as much as triple the usual reward for information that leads to their capture, defectors said …

THE OLYMPICS ARE COMING, IT’S TIME TO BEHAVE
New York Times Blogs – Ever consider using a national flag as a seat cushion? Or holler and whistle and make other unruly noises? Letting loose your inner demon on the Web? These are just some of the no-nos put out by Xinhua Web site in anticipation of the Olympics …

CHINA ACTS TO PRE-EMPT UNREST AS OLYMPICS NEAR
ABC – China has ordered local officials to head off any protests that could tarnish the Olympics, the Government said, after a violent riot by 10,000 people threw the spotlight on deep social tensions …

TORPROJECT.ORG BLOCKED BY GFW IN CHINA: SOONER OR LATER?
– We didn’t expect Tor wouldn’t be blocked for a long time before it became true days ago …

CHINA REBUFFS CRITICISM OVER STRICTER VISA POLICIES
Guardian – China has hit back at criticism over recently tightened visa policies ahead of August's Olympics, saying they were necessary to ensure Games security and keep out "hostile forces" …

WITH CHINA AND DALAI LAMA TALKING, SARKOZY SAYS HE MAY ATTEND GAMES
New York Times Blogs – French president Nicolas Sarkozy said Monday he might attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics if talks announced Sunday between the Chinese government and representatives of the Dalai Lama make progress …

DALAI LAMA'S TIME BOMB
Salon – It takes a particular form of confidence to sit across a negotiating table, armed only with moral courage and wearing religious robes, facing representatives of one of the world's biggest armies …

Another activist is taken into custody after helping families who lost children in the May earthquake. And authorities have drafted up rules giving teachers a moral responsibility to protect students.

News of the detention of another person in connection to their work with survivors of the devastating 12 May earthquake is hardly a bombshell.

In the last few weeks Chinese authorities have cracked down – sometimes using physical force – on protests and memorials by grieving parents. They also have blocked foreign journalists from visiting earthquake affected areas and ordered state media to stop reporting about the schools that collapsed in the earthquake.

The quake in the Sichuan province killed more than 70,000 people, including thousands of children who died when the school buildings they were in collapsed.

Spreading rumours

Radio Free Asia reports that police have apparently detained a teacher called Liu Shaokun, who had publicly criticised the construction of the collapsed school buildings.

An officer at Deyang police station – the area where Liu Shaokun lives – said he wasn't aware of the arrest, but declined to say more. However, a friend of the missing teacher, who was taken away on 25 June, told Radio Free Asia:

" … "He is accused of spreading rumors and instigating parents to negotiate with the government—sort of disturbing the social order. He isn't allowed to see his family …

" "He is a volunteer. He brought his camera and went to many places after the earthquake. He took many pictures and posted them on the Web. He is a teacher and angry that the government didn't pay more for the relief effort, so even more students died." …"

Held on suspicion

Liu Shaokun is not alone - rights activist and cyber-dissident Huang Qi is also in detention in connection with his work with families affected by the earthquake.

Huang Qi, founder of a human rights website, was arrested on 10 June, and is being held on suspicion of "illegally acquiring state secrets".

According to Amnesty International's sources, this is because of his workhelping families of students who died bring a legal case against local authorities over the poorly constructed school buildings.

Then there's retired university professor Zeng Hongling who wrote stories criticising the way authorities had handled the relief aid. The professor has been in detention since 9 June on charges of "inciting state subversion".

Teacher ethics

Meanwhile, China has moved to exercise control of school teachers in the post-quake fallout.

Reuters reports that the education ministry has deemed it’s "the moral responsibility" of a teacher to protect their students. The edict is included in a draft revision of teacher-student ethics regulations.

The move comes after the controversy sparked by Fan Meizhong, a high school teacher, who when the quake hit ran from his classroom before his students. None of students died in the disaster, but he later lost his job in connection with the incident and his comments afterwards.

Reuters reports:

" … "The revision ... says teachers should 'be good mentors and helpful friends'," the paper said ..."

In the latest wrap-up from news outlets and bloggers across the globe:

THE LAST HERO OF TIANANMEN
The New Republic – In the second half of 2003, Jiang Yanyong sat down to write a letter about what he had seen during the Tiananmen Square uprising and share it with the party's new leaders …

THE NEST GENERATION
Guardian – As the crowds converge through the heat of a sickly dusk, their expectation turns into a collective gasp - a moment of awe - as a red glow appears from within the stadium known universally as the 'Bird's Nest' …

CHINA, BIAS, MISUNDERSTANDING
My heart’s in Accra Blog – In putting together the Global Voices summit, the program sometimes ends up changing to reflect recent events. We added a panel a few weeks ago focused on the Chinese blogosphere and issues of bias, misunderstanding and miscommunication …

RICE EMPHASISES FRIENDSHIP DURING CHINA VISIT
Guardian – U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, under pressure to raise human rights and Tibet with Chinese officials, emphasised friendship over friction during a visit to China on Sunday …

HOW MUCH ARE BEIJING'S OLYMPIC SECURITY MEASURES COSTING CHINA?
Shanghaiist Blog – With less than six weeks before the Games, the Chinese visa situation Shanghaiist reported on earlier this month is not getting any better …

REPORTING THE OLYMPICS? BETTER HOPE THAT MODERATE OFFICIALS PREVAIL IN CHINESE RIFT POLICY
New York Times Blog – Some foreign journalists in Beijing say that at least part of China’s government is aware of the concerns that all is not right with the media preparations for the Olympic Games due to start on Aug. 8 …

OLYMPICS HAVEN'T HELPED ENVIRONMENT
Radio Free Asia – This summer’s Olympics Games are unlikely to bring China the environmental benefits that supporters expected when Beijing won its bid for the event seven years ago, experts say …

IS FIAT TOO CLEVER?
Blogging For China – The story of Fiat apologizing to China for its Richard Gere and Tibet themed ad for a new car was first reported on June 20. At that time, I quickly dismissed it as nothing but another blunder by the marketing department …

HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH'S GUIDE FOR REPORTERS GOING TO BEIJING
New York Times Blog – Human Rights Watch today released its guidebook for the estimated 25,000 reporters traveling to China to cover the Olympics …

TIBET-CHINA TALKS TO RESUME IN EARLY JULY: STATE MEDIA
AFP – Chinese authorities will resume talks with representatives of the Dalai Lama in early July following a request from the exiled Tibetan Buddhist spiritual leader, state press said Sunday …

China has executed three drug dealers to mark this week's International Day Against Drug Abuse, according to Reuters.

From Reuters:

" ... Chinese courts sentenced five people to death for drug dealing and executed another three in a mass sentencing aimed at drawing public attention to the issue of rising drug abuse, state media reported on Wednesday.

" … Courts in four Chinese cities handed down verdicts in 20 drug trafficking cases earlier this week to mark International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, which falls on Thursday, Xinhua news agency said …"

Shroud of secrecy

China has about 68 crimes that are punishable by death – things like drug offences, but also many non-violent crimes such as tax fraud, bribery, arson and prostitution.

It's known for using the death penalty more often at certain times of year, say the run up to major national events, around Chinese New Year and around 26 June, the International Day Against Drug Abuse.

So how many people does China execute each year? We don't know because the figures are a state secret. It's most certainly more than any other country in the world, but no one outside the echelons of power knows for sure.

" … Only a fraction of death sentences and executions carried out in China are publicly reported, and the extent and detail of the information selectively released by the relevant authorities fluctuates widely year by year …" says an Amnesty International report.

Last year, on the basis of news reports, Amnesty reckons at least 470 people were executed, though undoubtedly it was more.

Torture and interference

Amnesty doesn't believe anybody sentenced to death in China gets a fair trial in line with international standards. China's system doesn't presume innocence. It uses evidence extracted under torture. It restricts defendants' access to lawyers. And it's subject to political interference.

And if that's not enough, execution is a cruel and inhuman practice.

In China, condemned prisoners are sometimes paraded in an open truck on the way to their execution, sometimes they have to wear a placard with their name crossed out in red ink, sometimes they are executed minutes after their final appeal fails and sometimes they are stopped from seeing their relatives one last time.

China must abolish the death penalty, it's brutal and researchers say it doesn't deter offenders.

And it should start the process of abolition by first making public the actual number of people it executes and radically cutting the number of capital crimes.

A start perhaps

Though there is also some good news on this front with the China Daily reporting that the Supreme People's Court has overturned about 15 per cent of the death sentences handed down by high courts in the first six of this year.

" ... Gao Jinghong, presiding judge of the SPC's Third Criminal Law Court, said the majority of the death sentences were overturned because they were inappropriate or lacked sufficient evidence.

" ...Top court officials, including Chief Justice Xiao Yang and Gao himself, believe China is following the global trend of reducing the death sentence. Capital punishment could be abolished when social conditions demand so, but for now it has to stay. ..."

Well, it's a beginning.

What do you think?

In the latest wrap-up from news outlets and bloggers across the globe:

HUMAN FLESH SEARCH ENGINES: CHINESE VIGILANTES THAT HUNT VICTIMS ON THE WEB
Times Online – She looks like any other disgruntled young person. Arms tightly crossed, mouth twisted in contempt, she could be letting off steam about parents, school, or boyfriends …

IN THE INTERNET AGE, A NEW CULTURAL REVOLUTION
National Public Radio – For decades, China's government exercised tight control over the country's arts and culture. Now the Internet is allowing artists and entertainers to connect directly with new audiences — often under the radar …

JOURNALISM WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS
NPR On The Media – There is real investigative reporting in China, it’s just not done under a free press flag. Instead, practitioners mind an unstated set of rules, keeping themselves safe by employing tactics like using excessive jargon and exploiting government rivalries …

CHINA'S LAST MAOIST VILLAGE
Al-Jazeera – China's booming economy is constantly making headlines and the country's adoption of its own form of capitalism is a far cry from its Maoist past …

PORTALS TO OPPRESSION
Guardian – Web companies' compliance with Chinese censorship is a betrayal of western values and may prove bad for business …

UIGHUR JUSTICE
Wall St Journal – The controversy over the right of habeas corpus for U.S. terror detainees has obscured the fact that the legal process put in place by Congress for settling other detainee appeals has been quietly at work …

ANOTHER ARREST OF A POLITICAL ACTIVIST IN THE PROVINCES ...
Time Blog – Tell me again what it was holding the Olympics in Beijing was supposed to accomplish? A bit of political reform in China? A touch of liberalization? …

PERSEPCTIVES ON TRANSPARENCY
Nart Villeneuve Blog– When Google first added this censorship notification to google.cn — the China-specific version of Google — its significance was largely overshadowed by the fact that they had agreed to censor their search engine at all …

AIDS ACTIVIST'S DREAM 'DIED'
Radio Free Asia – A former student activist who set up a civil organization in the northwestern Chinese city of Urumqi to spread awareness of HIV/AIDS has described how the ruling Chinese Communist Party destroyed a grassroots group that tried to address the burgeoning epidemic in the region ....

CHINA DENIES 'POLITICISING' OLYMPICS
SMH – China denied it violated the prohibition on politicising the Olympics when a Tibetan official called for government opponents to be "smashed" to protect the Games.

CHINA SAYS NGOs STIR ANTI-CHINESE FEELINGS IN DARFUR
Reuters – China's envoy to the strike-torn Sudanese region of Darfur on Thursday accused western media and non-governmental groups of stirring up anti-Chinese feelings among opposition groups in the African country …

Hepatitis B and a batch of poetry are among the topics that Chinese censors have had in their sights in recent days.

Less than 45 days to the start of the Olympics and authorities are continuing their clampdown – recently they have blocked an online health forum, closed down a news and information website, banned a poetry publication and decided that another human rights defender can't meet with his lawyer.

Here's the lowdown:

The Financial Times reports that a support group for people affected by Hepatitis B – which has about 300,000 members – has had its website and online forum blocked in China.

" … (The website) was first shut down by the government last November. On Tuesday, Mr. Lu said an official had told him at the time that the closure was due to the upcoming Olympic Games. Mr. Lu managed to reopen the Web site by moving it to an overseas server, but Beijing last month began blocking access to the Web site within China, just 10 days after government officials participated in an event for World Hepatitis Day at the Great Wall …"

Poem controversy

Meanwhile, over at Boxun they are reporting that a news and information website has again been shutdown. The site's webmaster was earlier sacked from his chief editor's post at the BaiXing Magazine, which had been reporting a number of corruption cases. The website NCPSCZK.COM is more open in its contents than most other websites in China, says Boxun.

The US-based Boxun also filed news that a publication called Poems Monthly has been banned.

It says:

" … due to a controversial poem and commentary on the issue dated February 2008, with the title Project 571 which reminded readers of Lin Biao, recognized as a traitor in Mao's age …"

State secrets

Banning of a different kind comes with the refusal to let detained human rights defender Huang Qi – who published news about parents who lost children in the Sichuan earthquake – from seeing his lawyer. Huang Qi’s wife, Zeng Li, was also banned from seeing him.

From Human Rights in China:

" … On June 23, Huang Qi's lawyer Ding Xikui filed an application with the Chengdu public security authorities requesting permission to meet with his client. On June 24, when Huang's wife Zeng Li and lawyer Ding went to the Chengdu public security authorities to follow up on the application, they were handed a decision dated June 23, which stated: "because this case involves state secrets and Huang Qi illegally holding state secrets … the application … is denied." …"

Words and deeds

Back in 2001, when China was awarded the Olympics, officials promised that the move would improve human rights within the country.

Vice-president of the Beijing Olympic Bid Committee, Liu Jingmin, said "by allowing Beijing to host the Games you will help in the development of human rights".

Five years later, in 2006, another official reaffirmed those words: he said "China will live up to its words and will turn its words into deeds ... The government will honor the promises and commitments made during our bid to host the Games."

But so far actions don't equal words.

Is closing down a forum for people who live with Hepatitis B helping to improve human rights? What about banning a batch of poems? Or stopping a rights defender from seeing his wife and lawyer? I hardly think so.