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August 13, 2006 (Sunday) － Issue No. 62 |
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County
in Yunnan Exterminates 50,000 Dogs |
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Exemptions
and Probations Spare Corrupt Officials |
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China
Executes Official For Spying For Taiwan |
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Milestone in Organ Transplant History During my travels I made many acquaintances with people who know what is happening in China. The cruelty they had experienced is far beyond imagination....…Full Article |
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Gap Between the Rich and the Poor Increasing in China Of the 5,690 people interviewed, 98.3 percent felt that the gap between the rich and the poor in China had increased compared with what it was 10 years ago. Eighty four percent considered the current extreme disparity unacceptable......…Full Article |
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TAIPEI—Following an outbreak of rabies, Muding County in Yunnan Province has ordered all 50,000 dogs to be killed to fight rabies, even dogs that had been immunized against rabies were put to death. According to a report by Yunnan-based newspaper Life News, there has been a "Dog Killing Storm" in Muding County because many local residents suffered dog bites this year with three reported deaths, and later it was discovered that they died from rabies. To fight the rabies outbreak that had killed three people, the local government ordered the cull. The exceptions were military guard dogs and guard dogs that guard the arms warehouse. During the last few days, dog killing teams carrying sticks entered villages, and the sounds of firecrackers and beating of pots could be heard, followed by the sounds of mourning dogs wailing and barking, the report said. Muding County officials asked dog owners to kill their own dogs first, and then formed a dog killing team to clean up the ones that would escape, in which the people were transferred from the local governments, under the leadership of the director of the County Public Security Bureau. The dog killing team soon extended beyond the county to the towns and villages, and township cadres and village community members also joined the team. Muding County also set up checkpoints on all the roads from Muding County to outside roads. They checked all vehicles carefully and if they found a dog it would then be killed on the spot. A villager surnamed Li, who lives in Xiao Cangtun Village, said that his two dogs were lynched two days ago though they appeared very healthy after they had been quarantined. It was reported that most villagers agreed with killing the dogs because of the threat to public safety, but there were still a few villagers who didn't understand this and hid their dogs in the mountains or farmland. In this county-wide
dog massacre, various ways were employed to kill the dogs—hanging,
electrocuting, hitting with a stick. Some even perform euthanasia
on dogs by feeding the dogs drugs. To ensure that no dogs escaped,
some village cadres entered the villages at midnight and created the
noise—firecrackers and the beating of pots—to get dogs barking, and
then they followed the sound of the barking and killed those dogs
that were "hidden." Back CHINA—Chinese are often shocked when corrupt officials are arrested. However, 80 percent of the arrested officials are released on probation without being incarcerated. The judicial system in China has acute problems. The Hong Kong based South China Morning Post reported that there is a huge increase in exemption and probation rates among officials who have committed crimes connected with their official duties. It has drawn the attention of the procuratorial department. The report quoted the official Jiancha Ribao (Procuratorial Daily) as stating that courts granting exemption and probation for malpractice and tort cases have increased from 52 percent in 2001 to 82 percent in 2005. According to China's criminal laws, a person can be sued if he extorts over 5,000 yuan (approximately US$618). For bribery over 100,00 yuan, one can be sentenced to 10 years or more in prison, and in serious cases, the death penalty. From 2003 to 2005, there were 33,519 officials accused of work-related crimes who received probation, which is an average of 52 percent per year: a lot higher than the 19 percent probation rate in cases investigated by public security departments. This high rate of probation and exemption accentuates the prestige enjoyed by officials and diminishes the effectiveness of combating corruption. What is more, some officials who were found guilty of bribery, malpractice, and tort, are able to keep their jobs after they received exemption or probation. Hence, although they are removed from the official post, they still work in the same organization and enjoy the same pay and benefits. Chen Guangzhong, a professor from the China University of Political Science and Law who specializes in the code of criminal procedure, said that the accused are mostly government officials. They have many social connections established through political power that are hard to sever, even though they are imprisoned. The families of these officials can use their connections to put pressure on judicial departments. Zhou Guangquan,
Vice Director at the College of Law in Tsinghua University and a renowned
criminal law professor, said that large numbers of offenders in these
types of crimes receive exemption and probation, which is unethical
and in conflict with the basic principles of law and justice. Back Thousands of Christians in eastern China initiated a hunger strike to protest against the communist regime’s arrest of over fifty Christians in Hangzhou City on July 29. As reported on the BBC Chinese website, a Christian in Beijing disclosed that he had visited Christians being detained because of their involvement in a conflict with the communist regime. The Christians declared in a statement, "we urge all the brothers and sisters to start a hunger strike and also to pray for our fellow Christians who are detained. Please urge the government to release them as soon as possible." The Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights & Democracy said, on July 29, in Dangshan Town, Xiaoshan District of Hangzhou City, about five hundred policemen forcibly demolished a church that was under construction. The police clashed with over three thousand Christians. About twenty protesters were injured, four of them seriously. However, the official newspaper, Hongzhou Daily, reported that "a small number of people with ulterior motives instigated some people who didn't know the truth." The paper claims that before any application for land use was approved, the group built an illegal building on a piece of land that was collectively rented by farmers. The building's lot size was 3.99 mu (about .66 acres), with a building size of 820 square meters (8,800 square feet). According to another official news agency - the Xinhua News Agency, on the afternoon of July 29, employees from the local land management and construction development offices forcibly demolished this building. Two ringleaders of this event were detained by authorities. The official version says that "during the whole process, there was no clash or injury." An anonymous official from the local police department, while being interviewed by a French news agency, said, "the communist regime is handling this event. This church is an 'illegal' building, without approval from the government or Bureau of Religious Affairs. Therefore, this building must be demolished." This official
denied the reported number of people involved in the conflict. He
also denied the detention of any Christians. He said the communist
regime didn't detain any of those people. He added that these people
could freely express their request, but that if they disturbed public
order or violated rules, the communist regime would handle them through
due legal process. Back BEIJING — A Chinese government official has been executed for spying for Taiwan, and thousands of civil servants have been shown an "educational" video of the case as a warning, two government sources said on Monday. China and Taiwan have been spying on each other since their split at the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949, Tong Daning, who was in his mid 50s and held a rank equivalent to a notch below assistant minister in the National Development and Reform Commission, was executed in April, said the sources, who requested anonymity. Thousands of civil servants were required to watch a half-hour video entitled "The espionage case of Tong Daning stealing secrets" which showed the defendant standing trial, the sources said. "He was one of the most senior government officials to be executed in recent years," one source told Reuters. Tong sold classified documents in exchange for about $250,000 over 15 years, the source added. The commission for which he worked is responsible for economic planning and reform and does not deal directly with Taiwan issues. China is obsessed with secrecy and rarely publicizes espionage scandals. "There have been several cases of leaking state secrets in the past year," another source said. The number of espionage scandals has risen in recent years as economic reforms have spawned greed and corruption. In 1999, a Chinese major-general and a senior colonel were executed for selling state secrets to Taiwan for $1.6 million in the biggest espionage scandal of the Communist era. Last year, Major General Liu Guangzhi, who was targeted by Taiwan for recruitment as a spy, was jailed for 13 years for accepting bribes from subordinates seeking promotions or transfers. Liu was sacked as commandant of the Air Force Command Academy and expelled from parliament. This year, Chen
Hui, who had access to state secrets when he was with a top-level
government think-tank, was jailed for 13 years for selling state secrets
to Japan, sources have said. Back The first World Transplant Congress (WTC) was held from July 22 to July 27 in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., the place where the world's first transplant operation was conducted in 1954. The 2006 WTC was the largest conference in organ transplant history and was held by three of the world's largest transplant associations. Over 5,000 experts from around the world attended the conference. Organ transplant ethics was also a hot topic. Professor Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, stated his reasons against paying organ donors and allowing organ transplant tourism. He pointed out that without a consistent bioethical and legal ground between nations, allowing patients to receive transplants in other countries would only promote confusion in the management thereof. Being a doctor myself, I was deeply touched by western doctors' speeches. In the western world where people enjoy democracy and freedom, a patient's position on the waiting list is decided by various factors such as the severity (of the illness), timeliness, cross-categorization, and so on. But in communist China, money decides the time and quality of the organ transplants. In the past few months, I have traveled to many places to speak about organ harvesting by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) at various institutes, universities and conventions. During my travels I made many acquaintances with people who know what is happening in China. The cruelty they had experienced is far beyond imagination. During the meeting, renowned human rights attorney, Terri Marsh, on behalf of all Falun Gong practitioners, and their families who have been victims of the organ harvesting in China, presented the case to the Prosecutor's Office of the state of Massachusetts on July 24, against three doctors in China who have been identified as having been involved with organ harvesting, and who attended the conference. After we left Boston, we received a number of letters from medical organizations and transplant associations expressing their continued concern about what is happening in China, saying that they will bring the appeal of the Falun Gong practitioners to their countries so that more people will know and will stand up to stop the crime and stop the persecution. Back Gap
Between the Rich and the Poor Increasing in China Back BEIJING— China Youth Daily recently published the results of a Sina Net survey it conducted. Of the 5,690 people interviewed, 98.3 percent felt that the gap between the rich and the poor in China had increased compared with what it was 10 years ago. Eighty four percent considered the current extreme disparity unacceptable. Most People Believe the Government Should Increase the Wages of the Low Income Group The Southern Weekend did a survey of wealthy residents in China. The results showed that most of those surveyed think that money has brought them a state of insecurity. Tang Jun, researcher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, said that people should pay attention to the extreme disparity between the incomes of the rich and the poor in China. This isn't alarmist talk but sensible advice. The Beijing Daily quoted Mao Shoulong, director of the School of Administrative Management at Renmin University in China. Mao said that the resentment of the rich in China has a deeper, alternative meaning. It is actually resentment of unfair treatment. Many poor people are the victims of inequality. The newspaper article also pointed out that many rich people benefit from the inequities. The extreme disparity in China occurs not only in the urban areas but also in the rural areas. At the end of July, the China National Development and Reform Commission predicted that in the next six months, the disposable income of farmers will continue to decline and the disparity between the incomes of rural and urban residents will continue to rise. It's been more than 20 years since China started the "reform and open policy." The income distribution problem and the differences in incomes between regions continue to be a hot topic in Chinese society. Back |
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