REFLECTIONS IN A CHINESE EYE

Foreigners assist police in south China

NANNING - Michael Axel, a baker from Israel, moonlights as a police assistant in scenic Yangshuo county to help local police solve disputes involving foreigners.

"Yangshuo is a quiet and beautiful county where I live with my Chinese wife. I feel I should do my part in making it a better place for foreign visitors," Axel said.

Axel and another 15 foreigners are members of the Yangshuo Policing International Volunteers Group, which was set up in February 2011 in south China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region.  

Yangshuo, located in northeast Guangxi, is known for its breathtaking scenery and diverse cultural appeal, as it is home to 10 different ethnic minorities. The area's numerous ethnic festivals often bring an influx of visitors, many of whom are from other countries.

However, with language barriers and a lack of knowledge regarding Chinese rules and regulations, some foreigners encounter difficulties when visiting the county, some of which result in disputes.

In November 2010, a young man from Australia rode a motorcycle through the streets of Yangshuo without a Chinese driver's license. When traffic police stopped him, both sides ended up in a stalemate for half an hour until the police solicited the help of a British man to help explain local traffic regulations to the Australian.

Incidents like this led county police to form the volunteer group to help them handle incidents involving foreign visitors.

Read More China Daily

China’s Most Wanted: How the Cops Got a Murderous Serial Bank Robber

Police carry away the body of Zhou Kehua, the fugitive serial killer and armed robber, from the spot he was shot dead, in Chongqing Municipality, August 14, 2012.

Read more: http://world.time.com/2012/08/15/chinas-most-wanted-how-the-cops-got-a-murderous-serial-bank-robber/#ixzz23mPoGBJX

Before Zhou Kehua became one of China‘s most wanted fugitives, he enjoyed reading and collecting detective novels. When he was short of cash as a teenager, he would sometimes sit on the roadside and rent his novels out, an acquaintance told the Chongqing Morning Post. But as an adult Zhou took a more direct and violent route to raising funds: robbing people at gunpoint, then shooting them and leaving them for dead. Police say he is suspected of killing 10 people in a crime spree that spanned eight years and three major Chinese cities. It came to a bloody end Tuesday when Zhou, 42, was gunned down by two plainclothes officers in Chongqing, his hometown in southwestern China.

 Zhou’s death brought an end to a four-day manhunt that saw thousands of police, military police and troops scouring hillsides in Chongqing’s rural districts. The search was triggered by a shooting outside of a Bank of China branch in the city’s Shapingba district that left a woman dead and two others injured. The assailant, who police identified as Zhou, made off with $11,000, according to state media reports. The authorities feared that he would disappear into the rural districts near where he grew up, but instead he was found early Tuesday on a street in one of Chongqing’s urban districts, possibly preparing for another heist.

Private firearm ownership is illegal in China and gun crimes are rare. The shooting of three civilians in Chongqing on Friday stirred public concern and revived memories of 2009, when a handful of shootings helped spur a massive crackdown on crime. That campaign helped raise the national stature of Chongqing’s then-leader, Bo Xilai, who has since had a spectacular fall from grace. His wife, Gu Kailai, went on trial last week for the poisoning of a British businessman, and Bo, who was removed from office in March, is under investigation by the Communist Party’s internal discipline system.

READ MORE TimeWorld

Gangs no deterrent to Chinese gamblers

Galaxy Macau, which opened last year,  is one of Macau's biggest, most glittering attractions. Source: AP

Tedious, certainly, and a needlessly cruel time tax to impose on people about to drop stacks of money on the turn of a card, but not wildly unusual. Weekends normally strain Macau's hopelessly underpowered, bureaucratic infrastructure as thousands of Chinese jostle their way to the baccarat tables.

But the length of the queues in China's only legal gambling enclave is worth noting for two reasons. The first is that the lines of visitors were snaking around the arrivals hall in cheerful defiance of recent news. This month, police in the former Portuguese colony swooped on several casinos and hotels and rounded up more than 150 people. The raids followed three murders over the previous fortnight and come amid fears that the bad old days of gang warfare may return to Macau, particularly when the triad kingpin Wan "Broken Tooth" Kuok-koi is released from prison later in the year.

Read more at The Australian

Serial killer shot dead this early morning

A fugitive gunman who is suspected of killing nine
and wounding several others in armed robberies since 2004 was shot dead in
southwest China's Chongqing Municipality Tuesday. (Photo/Sina Weibo)

CHONGQING, Aug. 14 (Xinhua) -- A fugitive gunman who is suspected of killing
nine and wounding several others in armed robberies since 2004 was shot dead in
southwest China's Chongqing Municipality Tuesday, local police said.

Zhou was killed at the scene by police at Wosungou in Tongjiaqiao Village, in
Qinjiagang Township of Chongqing's Shapingba District at 6:50 a.m., according to
police officers with the Chongqing Municipal Public Security Bureau.

Police said that Zhou's DNA information provided by police in Jiangsu
Province and his physical characteristics provided by police in Changsha City of
Hunan Province laid a "solid foundation" for the operation.

Read more at Sina English

China’s Gao Shan heads home to face charges on $130M fraud ring after eight years hiding in Vancouver

Eight years after he slipped out of China to take up a quiet suburban life in Vancouver, Gao Shan, the accused mastermind of a $130-million embezzlement ring, has returned home to face fraud charges.

The sudden surrender ends Mr. Gao’s careful eight-year bid to evade the international reach of Chinese authorities.

Reportedly, the ex-banker “came to the conclusion that if he ultimately going to be sent back anyway it might be better if he was sent back voluntarily,” said Clive Ansley, a B.C. litigation lawyer who practiced in Shanghai for 13 years.

Mr. Gao is the former manager of the Bank of China branch in Harbin, a city of 10 million near the Russian border. According to Chinese authorities, between 2000 and 2004 Mr. Gao was the ringleader of a scheme to siphon cash from corporate accounts.

‘I don’t think the Chinese government likes to talk openly about it — it’s kind of embarrassing that they couldn’t find these potential criminals before they left the country’

Only weeks before the alleged fraud was discovered, say Chinese officials, Mr. Gao boarded a plane to Canada. Just before leaving, the banker reportedly told colleagues he was merely going to Beijing for surgery. He also instructed a colleague to hold onto his cell phone and leave it on. “Mr. Gao appears to have been trying to create the illusion that he was still in China,” reads the transcript of a 2007 Canadian immigration hearing.

Read more at National Post

Chinese police launch manhunt for 'Chinese Rambo'

By Tom Phillips, Shanghai

2:21PM BST 12 Aug 2012Rifle-toting police in combat gear descended on a forest-covered mountain outside the mega-city of Chongqing on Saturday in search of their suspect, named as 42-year-old Zhou Kehua.

The operation was launched after a woman was shot dead on Friday morning during a robbery outside a branch of the Bank of China in Chongqing. Police believe the gunman, who made off on a motorbike, may be responsible for an 8-year crime spree in which at least six people have been killed.

"This guy is like a Chinese Rambo," Bill Bishop, an influential China-blogger, wrote on his daily 'Sinocism' news bulletin. "His evasion skills are remarkable."

A photograph of the aftermath of Friday's attack showed the female victim, apparently suffering from a head wound, sprawled facedown on the pavement.

Another image showed a security guard clutching a towel to an arm wound.

Read more at The Telegraph

Mother of young rape victim heads home

CHANGSHA - The petitioning mother of a rape victim began her journey home on Saturday after being released from a labor camp in central China's Hunan province, saying she will continue her pursuit of justice.

Tang Hui sobs as she embarks on the bus journey home in Yongzhou of Central China's Hunan province. The photo is taken in Changsha, capital of the province on Aug 11, 2012. Local authorities released Tang from a labor camp on Friday, where she was ordered last week to serve an 18-month term for "disturbing social order and exerting a negative impact on society." Tang was challenging the sentences handed down to the men who abducted, raped and prostituted her 11-year-old daughter. Tang's case triggered a public outrage questioning the local justice system. Authorities also said they would investigate Tang's claim that police falsified evidence in her daughter's case. [Photo/Xinhua]

Read more at China Daily

China 'kidney for iPad' trial begins in Hunan

China 'kidney for iPad' trial begins in Hunan

 iPads are as sought-after in
China as in many other countries

Five people have gone on trial in
China for illegal organ trading and intentional injury after a student sold his
kidney to buy an iPad and iPhone.

The defendants include the surgeon who removed the kidney from the
17-year-old in the central province of Hunan.

They face up to 10 years in prison if found guilty, according to the
state-run Xinhua news agency.

The teenager, who suffered renal failure after the transplant, was said to be
too sick to attend the hearing.

The student, identified only as Wang, was recruited in an online chat room,
according to prosecutors.

They accused one of the defendants, He Wei, of arranging the illegal kidney
transplant last April in order to pay his gambling debts.

The group is said to have received around $35,000 (£22,000) for the transplant, while the student was reportedly given about $3,000 for his kidney.

He nearly died after suffering renal failure following the operation and is
said to still be in poor health.

Read more at BBC

Bo’s Wife Confessed to Murder During Trial, Xinhua Says

Gu Kailai, center, the wife of disgraced politician Bo Xilai, standing trial in the Intermediate People's Court in the eastern Chinese city of Hefei on Aug. 9, 2012. Photograph: CCTV via APTN

Gu Kailai, the wife of ousted Chinese Politburo member Bo Xilai, confessed to charges she used poison to kill a British businessman in his hotel room, according to China’s official news agency.

Gu admitted to dripping cyanide into Neil Heywood’s mouth as he lay drunk on his bed because she thought he had threatened her son, the Xinhua News Agency wrote in an account of the seven-hour trial in the eastern city of Hefei on Aug. 9. Zhang Xiaojun, an orderly in Gu’s house, confessed to aiding in the crime, Xinhua reported.

“This case has been like a huge stone weighing on me for more than half a year,” Xinhua cited Gu as saying at the end of the trial. “What a nightmare. During those days last November, I suffered a mental breakdown after learning that my son was in jeopardy. The tragedy which was created by me was not only extended to Neil, but also to several families.”

Read more at Business Week

Murder trial for wife of Chinese politician ends

HEFEI, China (AP) — The secretive murder
trial of the wife of disgraced Chinese politician Bo Xilai has ended after just one day.
There has been no immediate word on when a verdict will be delivered.

Gu Kailai and a household aide face charges
of murdering Neil Heywood, a British businessman who had close ties to the Bo
family.

The trial is being held the Hefei
Intermediate People's Court in eastern China. The accused are being
represented by government-appointed lawyers from Anhui province, of which Hefei is the capital.

The court's deputy director Tang Yigan said
the trial has ended but would not say when a verdict was expected.

Although two British diplomats were allowed
into the court under an agreement with China because of Heywood's nationality,
international media were not allowed in.

http://news.yahoo.com/murder-trial-wife-chinese-politician-ends-081930683.html

 

 

Chinese Torture

ID: 1
Ressource_Provider: Jérôme Bourgon
Title: Execution of Fu-zhu-li
Date of event: 10 April 1905
Date Accuracy: Exact
Place Continent: Asia
Place Country: China
Place Region: Hebei (Zhili)
Place City: Beijing
Place_Street: Caishikou菜市口
PlaceAccuracy: Exact
EventNature: Execution
Summary: Fu-zhu-li was a guard at the service of the *Mongol prince head of the Aohan (Jehol) banner. On New Years eve (*February 1905), he murdered the prince (essay: The Fu-zhu-li case). He was sentenced to quartering, the penalty prescribed for slaves who had murdered their master. As the photographs show, this was witnessed at close range by a number of witnesses. The photographs are now found, either printed on glass (for the stereos only) or on paper prints (essay: Photographic Processes). In addition, a set of 12 postcards (essay: Postcards), published in Tianjin, was available by 1912. The appalling images were accepted by the postal service, and some cards were actually mailed.
The photographs of Fu-zhu-li's execution added to the sulfurous interest already surrounding the lingchi penalty in the West. A few details on the criminal and the reasons for his sentencing were published by Carpeaux in 1913, together with two photographs. Some details are accurate (the names of the criminal and his victim, the executions date), others are more dubious (essay: The Fu-zhu-li affair) (critical review of Carpeaux). For example, and contrary to what he stated, Carpeaux cannot have been a witness to the execution (essay: Phony eyewitnesses). His story was nevertheless used by Georges Bataille in 1961 as a source on another lingchi execution (* to fiches "pseudo" Fu-zhu-li) (essay: Executions by Lingchi).

Bibliography
  1:Ref.: BOURGON, Jérôme Chinese Executions: Visualizing their Differences with European Supplices
  2:Ref.: MONESTIER, Martin Peines de mort. Histoire et technique des exécutions capitales, des origines à nos jours
  3:Ref.: MATIGNON, Jean-Jacques Dix ans au pays du Dragon
  4:Ref.: CARPEAUX, Louis Pékin qui s'en va

Essay
  1:Title: Photographing 'Chinese Torture' Jérôme BOURGON

Photographs

	1:Title: Lingchi C 0 tied to the post Fu-zhu-li is tied on the post, his face evincint a moving expression of sorrow. He seems well aware, however, not at all stunned by opium.
	2:Title: Lingchi C, Arrival2 The only broad angle shot in the set representing Lingchi C (Fu-zhu-li's execution), showing the huge crowd massed at close range of the executioners and the executed. The latter's expression is sorrowful.
	3:Title: Lingchi C, 1 in photocard The man is photographed frontally, in a close up, already tied up to the execution post. Both assistants (only the right one is fully visible) have moved to the side to clear the frame. The crowd of onlookers stands very close in the back.
	4:Title: Lingchi C, 1rst cut     Continuation at Turandot:Chinese Torture

China's gun culture grows

BEIJING - China and guns have a long history.

The country invented gunpower and developed one of the world's first guns, known as the "fire spear". Rifles played a major role in China's modern history, from the fight against the Japanese army to the communists' victory over the Nationalists. In 1938, Mao Zedong famously said that "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun".

That comment perhaps foreshadowed the gun control laws later implemented by Mao and the Communist Party - some of the most severe firearms laws in the world. China has imposed a blanket ban on gun ownership, including replicas. Since 1966, the government has prohibited the private manufacture, sale, transport, possession and import or export of bullets and guns.

Possessing a single gun can yield a three-year prison sentence, while perpetrators of gun crimes are often executed.

Yet despite harsh penalties, China's Ministry of Public Safety (MPS) has said it increasingly faces armed suspects. In the most recent high-profile case last month, a security guard in Hunan province in southerly China, apparently upset by a court-imposed divorce settlement, shot and killed three judges and wounded three others before turning the gun on himself.

It was not an isolated incident. In early 2007, a man in northeast China killed five family members and neighbors in a rampage with a homemade pistol. In September 2007, a man in Guangzhou city in southern China was sentenced to 19 years after using a replica gun to rob a bank customer. And in December 2008, a guard at a munitions depot shot and killed a colleague over a chess match, and was shot to death himself by police two days later.

Guns figured prominently during the 2008 unrest in the Tibet Autonomous Region, when a policeman and a Tibetan insurgent were killed during a gun battle.

"There has been an increase [of gun crime] in recent years," said Ding Xinzhen of Chongqing Academy of Social Sciences' Institute of Law. "It can be attributed to the rich-poor gap and unfair distribution of social benefits, together with inefficient government management [of gun laws]."

The growth of gun crimes being reported in state media coincides with the development of a gun culture in China. Web sites and magazines cater to the growing market. For instance, Small Arms, a bi-weekly glossy magazine, has 60,000 subscribers, and guns are regularly featured in Chinese films. The government has green-lighted shooting clubs in some cities, and businessmen are turning to hunting as a leisure activity.

Freshman college students can receive basic training in marksmanship, a sport China thrived on during the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympic Games.

China is one of the world's largest gun manufacturers, and many guns end up on the black market because of lax controls at factories and theft from armories. Ding said other black market guns in China were homemade weapons of poor quality. Other better-quality guns are smuggled into China through Myanmar. Prices for smuggled weapons range from about 500 to 2,000 yuan (US$73 to US$294), Ding said.

Li Dafu, a lawyer from the Henghexin law firm in Chengdu, Sichuan province in southwest China, said that while the country had adequate gun control regulations, the laws were often poorly enforced, particularly at the local government level.

Li, who is also an expert on gun crime and gun control law in China, pointed to a massive criminal trial last year in Chongqing city in southwest China, where a massive crackdown on organized crime netted some 2,000 suspects and 48 guns, and revealed a connection between gangs and government officials.

"The Chongqing gang cases tell us that in some places the local government has a beneficial relationship with local crime groups. They turn a blind eye when it concerns illegal gun use," Li said.

Chongqing has become a hotbed of illegal gun trafficking. In January 2009, police netted 470 suspects and 183 firearms following a 40-day campaign. In 2008, Chongqing municipal public security bureau statistics showed 339 cases involving illegal guns.

China's government periodically hosts rallies where citizens are encouraged to surrender guns in exchange for cash. One six-month campaign in 2008 netted 79,000 guns, 1.8 replica guns and 5.75 million bullets, according to the MPS.

China introduced gun control in 1966, after children armed with rifles shot out a window at the Great Hall of the People at the Tiananmen Square in Beijing while trying to hit a sparrow, according to official MPS history. The government cracked down harder on gun ownership after the 1989 pro- democracy demonstrations.

It needs to crack down even harder on today's rising gun crime.

Asia Times

China executes man who shot dead 4 police officers in rare case of gun violence

BEIJING, China — A Chinese state news agency says a man who killed four policemen in a shootout in eastern China has been executed. It was a rare case of gun violence in a country where private firearms ownership is illegal.

The official Xinhua News Agency says 51-year-old Liu Jianjun was put to death Tuesday. The Intermediate People's Court of Tai'an city in Shandong handed him the death penalty in March for murder and illegal possession of guns and ammunition.

Xinhua says Liu and his brother shot and killed three police officers who were questioning them at home on Jan. 4. They then hijacked four cars before they were cornered by police. They killed one more police officer in the shootout. Reports say Liu's brother killed himself in the shootout.

Google News

Tong boss "Little Pete" assassinated in a Chinatown barbershop

 

The "tong" secret societies are as American as Chop Suey -- which is to say, invented in San Francisco and completely unknown in China.

The first tong was organized by Gold-Rush era immigrants as a means of mutual support and defense against a mostly-hostile white dominated world, and before long, tongs had popped up in most every city with a Chinese population.

It didn't take long, though, for the money to be made from drugs, gambling and prostitution to attract a criminal element, especially in chaotic Barbary Coast-era San Francisco. The world of tongs devolved into a near-constant state of bloody gang warfare over control of Chinatown's underworld.

"Little Pete"

In the 1880s, a young man by the name of Fung Jing Toy rose to the top of this wild-west gangster scene, and created his very own tong -- a personal army of hand-picked hatchetmen. He was nicknamed "Little Pete", and with this army of boo how doy began violently pushing the other tongs off of their hard-won turf, moving inexorably towards complete control of Chinatown.

After an attempt to bribe one of his soldiers out of a murder rap landed him temporarily in San Quentin -- and made him famous throughout San Francisco -- Little Pete learned to buy protection in the white world.

By forging a cash-based alliance with "Blind" Buckley, the Democrat boss who controlled San Francisco's hopelessly corrupt City Hall, Little Pete became the undisputed king of Chinatown.

Not only was he new immune from the pesky annoyances of the law, but if a brothel or gambling dive failed to pay him their percentage, a "coincidental" raid by the police would shut them down, and Little Pete's boys would take over.

Gambling. Blackmail. Opium. Prostitution. Murder. For a solid decade Little Pete was the most powerful and feared Chinese on the Pacific Coast.

A price on his head

Little Pete had pushed the other tongs too far. They finally set their mutual enmity aside and put a price on the King's head: one thousand dollars.

Read more at sfist

A Story of Chinese Gangs in Northern Arizona

by Parker Anderson

It is well known that Northern Arizona, including Prescott, had a very large population of Chinese residents in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. However, since then, that community has all but disappeared from this area. The local Chinese have become the stuff of legend, often talked about but little documented.

Many Chinese communities in America were also beset by Tong activity. Now, Chinese Tongs were believed to be secret societies and/or gangs of Orientals who were extremely powerful and were believed, at least by non-Chinese, to be involved in criminal activity. Historians disagree as to the reach and scope of the Tongs, but many believed them to be virtually invincible. Much Tong activity is recorded by history in cities such as San Francisco. Tongs were considered to be very deadly, and they were often the subject of dime novels and old movies with anti-Oriental viewpoints in the early 20th century. Probably the best remembered American movie of the era to utilize the Tong theme was THE HATCHET MAN (1932) with Edward G. Robinson, but the subject still crept into cinema as late as 1963, with the British-made TERROR OF THE TONGS, starring Christopher Lee. Implied Tong activity existed in the films and novels about the fictional Oriental crime-lord Fu Manchu as well. But these glorified accounts were generally unrealistic, and the deadly reality of Tong violence in the nation's Chinese communities was still mostly only whispered about, along with speculative newspaper accounts when Tong violence actually broke out.

As with all gangs, violence often erupted between the rival Tongs, who often sent out "hatchet men" (assassins to dispatch their enemies). It was not widely believed that the Tongs reached into Arizona's Chinese communities until October 20, 1926. On that fateful day, Tom King, a Chinese immigrant of long residence in Kingman, was peeling potatoes in the kitchen of the American Kitchen restaurant, which he operated, when five other Orientals burst through the door with guns, opening fire, and killing King instantly.

Read More at Sharlot Hall Museum

Look at the Cross and pray for an end to capital punishment

The deed has been done. The death dealing chemical was injected and three human beings had their lives ended. Last Wednesday, March 30, three Filipinos were put to death in China by lethal injection. Amnesty International says that there may be thousands executed in China: the real figure is unknown due to strict secrecy. Iran and Saudi Arabia also execute minors. Eighteen countries executed people in 2009. Despite a United Nations call for a moratorium on the death penalty. The methods of execution can be beheading, stoning, hanging, electrocution, shooting and lethal injection. Twenty thousand more are on death row around the world.
 
The Filipinos executed in China were found guilty of separate crimes for trafficking heroin into China. They were drug couriers hired by syndicates and sent to their death. The Philippine government asked for a stay of execution over a month ago, it was granted but only for a short period. The Philippine government has little leverage with China, the Asian giant. It is scorned in China, and seen as corrupt, disorganized and incompetent, especially after eight innocent Chinese tourists were killed in a botched rescue attempt when they were held hostage on a bus in Manila by a fired policeman seeking reinstatement.

Read more at Spero News

Mentally ill enslaved in China factory freed

Beijing, Dec 15 (IANS) At least 12 mentally ill people, enslaved in a factory in China's Xinjiang Uygur region, have been rescued and the factory owner arrested and charged with abuse, officials said.

Police detained factory owner Li Xinglin Tuesday evening in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province.

Li had fled after local media revealed details about his abuse of mentally ill people in his factory, the China Daily reported Wednesday. His son, Li Chenglong, was also arrested while fleeing on a bus.

The factory, Jiaersi Green Construction Material Chemical Factory, registered in July 2006, produces quartz sand.

Reporters from the Xinjiang Metropolis News were tipped that the factory was using mentally ill workers. They went to the factory under cover and interviewed the owner about pollution, and viewed the conditions there.

The reporters found the workshop covered with thick dust, but workers had no masks.

Some neighbours told them that similar plants in the area were closed from October to March but workers at Jiaersi worked all year round and that too without pay.

The report aroused widespread publicity and resulted in prompt action, and the factory has been closed.

The rescued workers have been placed under the care of local authorities.

sify

60,000 porn websites shut in China

Beijing: More than 60,000 pornographic websites have been shut in China following a massive crackdown, authorities said.

Nearly 1.785 million websites have been checked since the launch of the campaign in December 2009 and some 2,197 cases of dissemination of online pornography have been dealt with during the crackdown, National Office Against Pornographic and Illegal Publications said.

The office said it has received more than 160,000 porn-related tip-offs from the general public, state-run Xinhua reported.

"Spread of pornography has been effectively curbed and the Internet further purified," the office said.

China has the world's largest online population, with more than 420 million netizens.

IBN LIVE

Video: China Milk Activist Mystery

Questions continue to surround the case of consumer rights activist Zhao Lianhai after his lawyers were handed a note saying their client was “unable” to meet them.

Zhao was sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison earlier this month for “disturbing social order,” after he set up a website for parents of children sickened in 2008’s tainted milk scandal.

Video courtesy of Reuters.

Interestingly, China’s state-run Xinhua news agency today quotes China’s Justice Minister as saying the government is working on plans to improve lawyer access to clients in police custody.

See also: China’s Spoiled Milk Protest

ChinaRealTimeReport

 

China cuts drug mule's jail term

Umi Azlim’s father, Mohamad Lazim Jusoh, holding a newspaper report of his daughter whose life sentence in China for drug trafficking has been reduced to 12 years. — Picture by Fathil Asri

PASIR PUTIH: There is good news for the family of graduate Umi Azlim Mohamad who was convicted of drug trafficking in China.

The life sentence imposed on the 26-year-old earlier this year has been reduced to 12 years' jail.

This is the second time her sentence had been commuted. She had originally been sentenced to death by a Chinese court.

"We were really happy and excited when we heard the news through a relative who was informed by a Malaysian embassy official.

"It came as a surprise to the family members, especially her twin sisters Umi Azmira and Umi Azuraiha.

"We are trying to confirm this with Wisma Putra," said Umi Azlim's father, Mohamad Lazim Jusoh, at his house in Taman Desa Anda here.

The 54-year-old mechanic said he submitted an appeal to the court in China during his visit to the country together with his late wife, Umi Slaia Ibrahim, and the coordinator of Azlim's assistance fund, Hu Pang Chaw, three years ago.

"We earlier thought that the life sentence was final. But now, it has changed and we are glad about it," said Lazim.

Clutching his daughter's picture that was published in a local newspaper recently, he said the only thing that the family regretted was his wife not being able to share the joy of the good news.

"I was also told that my daughter was not the only Malaysian being held in the prison for the offence, but there were also several others.

"As a father, I really hope parents will monitor their children's activities, especially those going on overseas trips.

"Let this be a lesson to us," said Lazim.

Umi Azlim, the eldest of six siblings, was caught trafficking in 2kg of heroin in her luggage when she arrived in Shantou, China, in 2007.

Read more: China cuts drug mule's jail term http://www.nst.com.my/nst/articles/08drg-2/Article/#ixzz15vsNbQYj

Local gov't in north China responds amid online debate triggered by police couple's murder

TAIYUAN, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- Local government departments in northern China's Shanxi Province made an official response Saturday concerning the controversy sparked by the murder of a married police officer couple.

Some media outlets have suggested the pair may have been corrupt.

The population and family planning bureau in Hongtong County told Xinhua the couple, Wang Jianxiong and his wife Han Huifang, who both worked in Hongtong County's public security bureau, had two daughters and one son but withheld the truth about the birth of their second daughter.

A bureau spokesperson said the bureau is working together with related departments to discipline those responsible for concealing the birth of their second daughter.

The county's public security bureau confirmed the couple's three children are studying in the United States. But the spokesperson did not say whether or not the couple financially supported their children.

As for the online rumors the couple ran the Hongtong County Lusheng Coal Mine and the Hongtong County Dingxin Smelter, the spokesperson said neither Wang nor Han registered with the county's industry and commerce administrative bureau to establish the enterprises.

Read more at XINHUANET    

Chinese woman sent to labor camp for satirical anti-Japan Twitter posts, rights group says

BEIJING (AP) - China has sentenced a woman to a year in a labor camp for "disrupting social order" by retweeting a satirical message urging Chinese protesters to smash the Japan pavilion at the Shanghai Expo, an international rights group said.

Cheng Jianping, 46, re-posted a message from the social networking site Twitter last month hinting that Chinese protesters should smash the Japan pavilion at the Shanghai Expo and adding on the message "Angry youth, charge!" according to Amnesty International, which condemned the sentence in a statement late Thursday.

Amnesty and Cheng's fiance said her retweet was meant as satire, mocking anti-Japanese protesters who had grown in number since tensions between the countries increased after a dispute erupted in September over islands claimed by both Japan and China.

"Sentencing someone to a year in a labor camp, without trial, for simply repeating another person's clearly satirical observation on Twitter demonstrates the level of China's repression of online expression," Amnesty International's Asia-Pacific Director Sam Zarifi said in a statement.

Cheng's fiance, Hua Chunhui, said he thought the government reacted the way it did to the tweet was because they are activists. The two had planned to get their marriage license Oct. 28, the same day Cheng was detained.

Read more at CB Online

Hit-and-run backlash rattles China's elite

It is a catchphrase that has become shorthand for state irresponsibility and arrogance all over China: "Sue me if you dare. My dad is Li Gang."

The expression has spread like wildfire on the internet, highlighting growing public outrage at the criminal indifference of some of the children of the country's privileged elite.

After driving his black Volkswagen Magotan into two rollerblading students outside Hebei University in the Beishi district, a drunk Li Qiming did not stop until he was intercepted by security guards and students on campus. Mr Li stepped calmly out of the car and without any sign of remorse uttered the catchphrase: "Who's your daddy?"

His father, Li Gang, is the deputy chief of the Public Security Bureau in Baoding City, which is in Hebei province, northern China, and this position would usually guarantee freedom from broader consequences.

The story broke initially in the local media. But soon the censor, fearful of wider social problems, put the lid on the news. However, Li Qiming's comments have been published widely online and have provoked angry and mocking reactions from millions of Chinese. It is a classic example of how social and political issues make it into the wider social sphere, despite the Great Firewall of China, which seeks to keep a lid on uncomfortable truths.

Read more at The Independent

China executes serial killer for murdering 11 people

BEIJING, China — China has executed a serial killer convicted of murdering 11 people, including three police officers, over the course of nearly a decade.

Cheng Ruilong, 37, was sentenced to death earlier this year by the Foshan Municipal Intermediate People's Court for murder, robbery and rape in China's southern province of Guangdong, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Wednesday.

During Cheng's appeal to the Supreme Court, the court reduced the number of victims from 13 to 11 because the bodies of a mother and daughter allegedly killed by Cheng were not found, the report said.

Cheng smiled when his sentencing was read out at the Supreme Court, according to the state-run Guangzhou Daily.

He was executed by lethal injection Tuesday, state media reported. Calls to the Foshan Municipal Intermediate People's Court rang unanswered Wednesday.

Xinhua said Cheng used various aliases to dodge authorities. Once, he killed three members of a family and then stole more than $10,000 from them.

Mass attacks are rare in China but a spate of vicious assaults this year — including several on schoolchildren — have shocked the country.

Violent crime in China jumped 10 per cent last year, with 5.3 million reported cases of homicide, robbery, and rape. It was the first time since 2001 that violent crime increased, according to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

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A death in China triggers disgust, derision

BAODING, CHINA—It might have been a fatal traffic accident like so many others that occur in China every day.

But when 20-year-old student Chen Xiaofeng was run down and killed on her college campus this month, it was different — and triggered a firestorm.

Chen was roller-blading with a friend at the University of Hebei, when a car collided with them and pitched them both sprawling and bleeding on to the pavement.

But the driver did not stop.

Instead, he sped on — corralled minutes later by campus security guards and angry students.

Undaunted, the driver drunkenly climbed out of his car, and confronted the crowd shouting, “Go ahead and sue me! My father is Li Gang!”

It was Oct. 16 — and those words have reverberated around China ever since.

Li Gang is a senior police official here in Baoding, about 140 kilometres south of Beijing.

His son’s loud, arrogant and public profession that his father’s power would trump any law enraged students here and, eventually, much of the country.

China’s Internet, home to some 400 million users, lit up with fury.

And many claimed the case is by no means isolated — but typifies the “arrogance” of children of Chinese officials who believe, in the words of one blogger, “that they can get away with any mistake or any crime they commit.”

Two weeks on, that anger is undiminished, and the government is concerned.

The words, “My father is Li Gang,” have become the single, most popular phrase on China’s Internet, one laced with derision about the base way in which China’s government often works, especially at the local level.

Meantime, Chen Xiaofeng is dead from her injuries; her friend is recovering in hospital; and Li Gang’s 22-year-old son, Li Qiming, is in custody awaiting completion of the investigation.

Read more at The Star