REFLECTIONS IN A CHINESE EYE

China puts on hold trial of Tibet environmentalist

BEIJING — An award-winning Tibetan environmentalist's trial on separatism charges has been put on hold, the latest twist in a trio of intertwined cases pitting three brothers against China's communist authorities.

The cases come amid increasing reports of repression of Tibetan intellectuals, an echo of the massive security crackdown that followed deadly rioting in the capital Lhasa two years ago.

Rinchen Samdrup was due to go on trial Thursday in the Tibetan region of Chamdo on the charge of "incitement to split the country," but the trial was abruptly canceled on Sunday, according to lawyer Pu Zhiqiang.

Rinchen Samdrup, 44, was detained in August, along with his younger brother, Chime Namgyal, after they accused local officials in eastern Tibet of poaching endangered species.

Chime Namgyal, 38, is reportedly serving a 21-month sentence in a labor camp on the vague charge of harming national security.

A third brother, Karma Samdrup, 42, was arrested Jan. 3 after visiting his brothers in jail and speaking in their defense. He was due to go on trial on Tuesday in Yanqi county in the far western region of Xinjiang adjoining Chinese-administered Tibet.

He is accused of dealing in looted antiquities, charges dating from 1998 that were never pursued until this year. Supporters say the charges were revived to punish him for standing up for his brothers.

Read more at Google News

China Changes Rules on Evidence Obtained by Torture

Stanley Lubman, a long-time specialist on Chinese law, teaches at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law and is the author of “Bird in a Cage: Legal Reform in China After Mao,” (Stanford University Press, 1999).

A tragic but true story has been used to support a change in Chinese criminal procedure. Zhao Zuohai was acquitted after serving 10 years in jail for murdering a neighbor. He had confessed to the crime, was sent off to jail but, ten years later, his “victim” turned up alive. Three policemen who had obtained his confession – which turned out to have been coerced — have been arrested. Now, new rules have been announced limiting the use of torture, one of the most offensive human rights violations common in Chinese criminal procedure.

Late last month two guidelines that promise to limit the use of torture by police and prosecutors in criminal cases were issued by no less than five Chinese organizations concerned with law enforcement, the Supreme People’s Court, the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, the Ministry of Public Security, the Ministry of State Security, and the Ministry of Justice.

They are welcome reforms in practices that were long forbidden under the Criminal Law (Section 247) and Criminal Procedure Law (Section 43) adopted in 1997, which forbid the use of torture, but without addressing the consequences for the use or exclusion of evidence obtained through torture. Although China is a nation in which a legal system is being created in remarkably short time, criminal law and criminal procedure remain the branches of the law most in need of reform, and the process of reform has been painfully slow.

One of the new guidelines, for use in capital cases, provides that evidence obtained illegally, involving ”torture, violence or threats, undocumented physical evidence, and evidence certified by unqualified organizations” may not be used to convict defendants. (“Evidence guidelines ban torture in capital cases,” South China Morning Post, May 31, 2010) Professor Bian Jianlin of the China University of Political Science and Law was quoted as noting that” no previous law or regulation clearly stated that when evidence may have been acquired through forced confession it must be excluded.” The same guideline also states that “every fact must be supported by evidence,” the first time that this principle has been clearly articulated in a legal norm.

Read more at China RealTime Report

China to build 550 mental hospitals in response to school stabbings

China has announced that it will build 550 more mental hospitals over the next two years as it struggles to find a response to a wave of murders by mentally ill criminals

Malcolm Moore in Shanghai

Pupils hold a vigil at Nanping City Experimental Elementary School where eight children were stabbed to death Photo: REX FEATURES

 

Yin Li, the vice minister of Public Health, said China was determined to bolster its mental health care by building hundreds of new facilities.

He said improved treatment for mentally ill patients would reduce the chance of "social disturbances", including the "recent offences by mental patients in some areas" according to the state-owned China News website.

Earlier this year, China suffered a series of copycat attacks on kindergartens, with tens of children being stabbed to death by crazed knifemen. In some of the cases, including the killing of eight children on March 23 in Fujian province, the authorities determined that the attackers had been mentally unstable.

Wen Jiabao, the Chinese prime minister, said that China had to "pay attention to the deeper motives" that led to the attacks.

"China is undergoing a huge social transformation and consequently large numbers of mental patients are emerging because of various social problems," said Jiang Qianjin, a professor of psychology at Zhejiang University.

"From the point of view of maintaining stability, the new hospitals are definitely good news. There are a large number of poor and mentally-unstable people scattered around the country, but the hospitals have had poor facilities and treatment and the attention they were given was far from sufficient."

The Telegraph

Torture Techniques at Guantánamo: “Communist Inspired” ...or Developed, Refined, and Exported by the USA?

A July 2, 2008 New York Times article, “China Inspired Interrogations at Guantánamo,” reported that in 2002 military trainers at Guantánamo Bay based an interrogation class on a chart about torture techniques including “sleep deprivation,” “prolonged constraint,” and “exposure.” The article says this chart was copied from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions from American prisoners and is “the latest and most vivid evidence of the way Communist interrogation methods that the United States long described as torture became the basis for interrogations both by the military at the base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and by the Central Intelligence Agency.”

The real truth is that historically, the United States has been NUMBER ONE when it comes to developing, refining, and exporting torture techniques—like electroshock and waterboarding that U.S. interrogators have used against suspected “terrorists.” Part 1 of this series (Mad Scientists and Criminal Laboratories) exposed how the CIA and the U.S. military conceived of, funded, and utilized inhumane experiments, using human guinea pigs, to develop torture techniques—such as shock treatment, sensory deprivation, and the use of hallucinogenic drugs. Part 2 (The U.S. Roots of Waterboarding) discussed how, at the turn of the 20th century—before the existence of any communist government—the U.S. routinely carried out what is now called waterboarding, in the Philippines.

Part 3 looks at the actual policies and conduct of Maoist China towards U.S. POWs during the Korean War.

*****

At the end of WW2, the Korean peninsula was divided into north and south by the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The U.S. imperialists saw the southern half of Korea and the puppet regime they installed there as a major element in their plans to contain and perhaps wage war against the Soviet Union. And then after the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949, the U.S. saw the pro-U.S. government in South Korea as crucial to surrounding, containing, and threatening the spread of communism in Asia. The People’s Republic of China was only a year old when it was directly threatened by the United States with the outbreak of the Korean War.

For over 50 years, the U.S. has repeated the story that during the Korean War, American POWs were tortured by Chinese communists and forced to make “false confessions” about the U.S. using biological warfare. Two basic things need to be said about this:

First, there is a lot of credible evidence that the U.S. did in fact use biological warfare during the Korean War.

And second, the truth about the actual policies and conduct of Maoist China towards U.S. POWs during the Korean War is utterly different than what has been propagated by the U.S. government, the mainstream media and standard histories: the approach of the Chinese communists towards POWs, far from being one of torture, so-called “brainwas

U.S. Biological Warfare

During World War 2, after Japan invaded and occupied China, a covert branch of the Japanese Army called “Unit 731,” did experiments on POWs in China to study the potential for large-scale bacteriological warfare. As many as 270,000 civilians may have died due to these experiments.¹ So what was the U.S. response to this horrible crime against humanity?

The U.S. granted immunity to members of Unit 731 in exchange for their research data.

Canada had also been developing biological weapons, including anthrax, and the U.S. took over these experiments.² By the time the Korean War started in 1950, the U.S. had five anti-personnel agents and two anti-crop agents, tested in cluster-bombs. In 1952, the U.S. Air Force requisitioned 23,900 of these cluster-bombs. U.S. scientists were also experimenting with the use of flies, fleas, lice, mosquitoes and ticks, to spread germs. Between 1951 and 1953, during the Korean War, the U.S. spent $345 million on research into biological warfare (about $2.2 billion in current dollars).

Thirty-six American pilots captured in Korea and interrogated by the Chinese army confessed to being involved in U.S. operations using biological weapons. They said they dropped fleas infected with plague and turkey feathers coated with toxins. When these pilots came home after the war they were threatened with court-martial and recanted their confessions.hing,” and inhumane treatment, was lenient and centered on political education.

Read more at REVCOM

Animal organs worth millions seized at Guwahati airport

GUWAHATI: Customs officials Sunday seized a huge consignment of tiger bones and other animal parts estimated at a whopping Rs.10.66 million and destined for use in traditional medicines in China, an official said.

A customs official said the seizure was made from the Gopinath Bordoloi International Airport in Guwahati and includes tiger bones and skulls, besides 125 kg of pangolin scales.

"The animal organs were estimated at about Rs.10.66 million if sold in the international market," Customs Superintendent S. Das said.

The consignment came in neatly packed sacks from Dimapur, the commercial hub of Nagaland, in a regular flight and reached Guwahati.

"The consignment was booked as parcels by Speed Post (government posts department courier service) and was destined for (Manipur capital) Imphal," Das said.

"We are now focusing on how to bust the racket and arrest the main kingpins involved."

The official said preliminary investigations indicate the consignment would have gone by road from Imphal to Myanmar to its final destination, somewhere in China.

"This is the route for animal organs smuggling syndicates with animal organs like tiger bones, rhino horns, pangolin scales, going from Assam into Manipur and then finding their way to Myanmar before reaching other South Asian countries," the official said.

On Thursday, a similar consignment was seized from the same airport here worth an estimated Rs.20 million.

"An organised international animal organs trafficking syndicate is operating here. Tigers are killed in some wildlife sanctuaries in Assam and then the organs that are in demand are carefully segregated for smuggling to China," Das said.

People in China and other South Asian countries use tiger fat to treat leprosy and rheumatism, while tiger claws are used as a sedative, teeth for fever and nose leather for dog bites.

Tiger bone is used in Vietnam as a balm to alleviate rheumatism and general weakness. But it is the demand for medicines derived from ancient Chinese traditions that drives today's market for tiger parts.

The scales of the pangolin are used in conjunction with herbs to treat a host of conditions, including masses in the abdomen, rheumatism, skin and external diseases, besides invigorating the blood, promoting menstruation and lactation, reducing swelling and dispelling pus.

Profits in the illegal animal organs trade are staggering - a rhino horn sells for up to Rs.1.5 million per kilogram in the international market after the horns are smuggled to clandestine Asian markets.

A kilogram of pangolin scales is worth about Rs.60,000, while a gram of crushed tiger bone costs about Rs.1,000 in the international market, customs officials said.

Tiger hunting is illegal worldwide and the trade in tiger parts is banned under a treaty binding 167 countries, including India.

A possible route of animal organs smuggling is to Kathmandu via Siliguri and then from Nepal to China and the Middle East. The other possible route is from Imphal to Moreh on the Manipur border with Myanmar and then via Myanmar to Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore and China

The Times of India

Counterfeit Condoms and a New Arrangement

New Yorkers long ago stopped being fooled by the luxury knockoffs peddled from sidewalk card tables at prices too good to be true. Not that they always keep their wallet in check — as a close inspection of many a supposedly pedigreed Louis Vuitton handbag might reveal, if the penny-pinching owner would allow it.

There are some counterfeit goods, though, where the close-enough counterfeit is far from an adequate substitution for the confidence of a brand-name product. Take a specific, alarming example: Trojan condoms.

Federal officials say that a counterfeit smuggling ring, ZX Trading, made millions selling imported Chinese knockoffs, including bags, clothes and sunglasses that bear brand names including Disney, Nike and North Face. But perhaps the most troubling discovery was of a stash of more than half a million fake Trojan brand condoms, which did not have spermicide as advertised and later failed water leakage tests.

A prosecutor for the United States attorney’s office in Brooklyn called the fake condoms “a danger to the public.” A lawyer for Church & Dwight, which owns Trojan, warned that the condoms “may pose potential safety risks to consumers and users.”

Two siblings were scheduled to be sentenced on Friday in Brooklyn for their role in running the counterfeit-smuggling ring that federal officials say was responsible for importing the bogus condoms. The hearing was postponed because of a debate about the level of the siblings’ involvement in the condom situation.

The two, Lin F. Hu and Jian Lin Hu, pleaded guilty to one count of trafficking in counterfeit goods last year, though they specifically did not admit to importing the condoms. A recent court filing on behalf of the siblings reiterated the denial, adding, “The mere fact that a product has a counterfeit brand name does not mean that it is dangerous.”

Prosecutors are seeking a sentence of 46 to 57 months in prison.

Read more at The New York Times.

Keep human hands digging out online dirt

 
A local bill in Zhejiang Province has recently triggered controversy over "human flesh searches" among Chinese netizens and media. Article 39 of the drafted Regulation on Promoting Information in Zhejiang Province, which is being proposed for approval by the provincial people's congress, stipulates that no organization or individual is allowed to publish, transmit, delete or change information that individuals have disclosed online.

It's clearly an attempt to restrict human flesh searches, which are massive and cooperative research efforts using Internet media such as blogs and forums for the purpose of identifying and exposing individuals who have come to the attention of netizens, most commonly supposedly corrupt officials. The term "human flesh" indicates the pivotal role human ingenuity plays in this process, far different from traditional online searches by computer algorithms.

Human flesh searches sound horrible. But they are an inevitable outcome of online discussions of topics that everybody is interested in. It exists in many countries and regions outside of China, under different names.

The prevalence of human flesh searches is largely due to a grass-roots sense of justice and sympathy.

When an official is caught abusing an ordinary person, for instance, netizens want to expose them and find out any other dealings they have, such as children at school in the US, expensive properties, and costly cars.

However, there's definitely a problem in that such searches may mislead the public and violate some people's legal rights and interests. For instance, in 2008, a game player was severely harassed due to netizens' beliefs that he had probably had a one night stand with another man's wife.

Read more at Global Times

Wuhan Nail House Owner Fights Forced Demolition with Home-Made Cannon

A recent post about one really tough nail house has been going around on internet. It was popular enough to warrant an article on Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao (明报).

Here is what the original forum post said:

Translation:

武汉超牛钉子户自制火炮对抗拆迁（原创猛图）

The high profile Chongqing nail house looks like nothing compared to this. Here is one super guy I met when visiting a classmate in Dongxihu District (东西湖).

I spent an afternoon locating the farmer whose name is Yang Youde (杨有德).

Some background: Mr. Yang has a house and a vegetable patch near Jinyinhu part of Dongxihu District, where some developer wanted to start a project a few months earlier. However, before the two sides could agree on compensation, the developer hired security guards to tear down Yang's house. In this one vs. many fight, Yang was at a distinct disadvantage. Each time he called the police, the officers only urged both sides to refrain from violence but failed to solve the problem.

Yang was mad after seeing his buildings being torn down little by little, so he built a "cannon cart" using super-sized firecrackers and a hand trolley.

The homemade cannon was astonishing. The first time it was used, chaos broke out among the guards. But because only one shot can be fired at a time, Yang still got beat up. Luckily the police then arrived and pulled the guards away. Yang then thought up another idea. This time he built a blockhouse on top of his house

Read more at Veggie Discourse 

The Marginalized Second Generation Peasants

Translation of a commentary in Southern Metropolis Daily titled “The Second-Generation Peasants Living an Ostracized Life”.

ALICE POON
Here is my translation of the commentary:- 

“Human beings are the subjects of a development process. Development policies should aim at transforming each individual into a major participant and beneficiary of the process and should not result in creating marginalized and victimized groups.

 

At the inauguration ceremony of the recent Shenzhen National People’s Congress meeting, government officials and enterprise management personnel had a chance to reflect on this issue. Xu Xiaowen, president of the Chang Yuan Group, said that it is necessary to change the present situation where factory workers are treated like ‘machines by day and wooden blocks by night’, and to increase after-work recreational activities for the workers.

 

In the author’s view, this is a depiction of the same old marginalized way of life for the second-generation peasant workers. Presently, the second-generation peasants are still ostracized from the urban social security system. They have long been in a precarious position in many aspects like living standards, job opportunities and medical benefits etc. Such precarious position is bound to force them to live spiritually isolated lives from society, and is the cause for their marginalized existence. The second-generation peasants live in isolation, far away from urban dwellers, from normal city life. They are unable to have normal family lives. They are like a bunch of ‘Robinson Crusoes and Fridays’ who have been stranded on a remote island and who live like castaways.

 

Hidden behind the saying ‘machines by day and wooden blocks by night’ are two horrible revelations. One is that the second-generation peasants are doomed to the destiny of the first generation and from this phenomenon one can perceive the seriousness of social class stratification. The second-generation peasants are excluded from the city’s systems. Although they live within a city, their identities are not recognized by urban society, thus making them neither villagers nor city dwellers and landing them in an awkward position. This gives another marginalized quality to their existence.

 

The second revelation is that the hereditary gene rooted within the psyches of the marginalized group can lead to a strengthening and inflation of the feelings of deprivation. On the surface, the second-generation peasants have accepted the city way of life, but the city has not extended them an official reception, as the city does not count them in in its policy-making. It has thus caused antagonism in the marginalized group towards the city government. On this second-generation peasant issue, inequalities in the economic, cultural and social aspects are most prominent, as is the contradiction between the city’s acceptance of this group’s economic contribution and its non-acceptance of the group’s social status in the city.

 

The saying ‘machines by day and wooden blocks by night’ fully reflects the fact that the second-generation peasants’ development right is being ignored. Human beings are the subjects of development process, and development policies should transform each individual into a participant and beneficiary of that process, and should not result in creating marginalized and victimized groups. Hence, ‘machines by day and wooden blocks by night’ is as well a matter of rights. It is only on this ground that one can see clearly the allegory of marginalization. Only from this standpoint can one contemplate the problem of how best to protect the young lives of the second-generation peasants.”

Asia Sentinel

Remembering the Tiananmen Square massacre

 
Ling, a leader in China's democracy movement in 1989, stands before the iconic photo of a man blocking Chinese tanks during the Tiananmen Square demonstrations. (Photograph courtesy of Chai Ling)

On the eve of the 21st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre, three former leaders of the pro-democracy demonstrations gathered Thursday night in Falls Church, Va., to share their memories and experiences since 1989.

Capt. Xiong Yan, Chai Ling and the Rev. Bob Fu were icons of the movement in China. Each remembers leading a group of students into the square, united by the "human spirit yearning for freedom," Mr. Fu said during a prayer service sponsored by China Aid at the History Sanctuary.

And all three recalled the tanks surrounding the square to attack. Mr. Xiong recalled when the first shots were fired, and his fellow students were strewn bleeding across the ground.

"Whenever I close my eyes, that picture will come up again," Mr. Xiong told the gathering.

But instead of trying to make a political statement with their stories, the three former pro-democracy leaders, now successful in their chosen fields, spent the anniversary praying for victims and perpetrators alike.

One by one, they gave their testimonies and led a group of 55 attendees in prayer, speaking in Chinese and English.

Mr. Xiong drew attention to the victims of Tiananmen and their relatives who suffered loss and subsequent discrimination. He asked the congregation to pray for those who were still in pain.

Mrs. Chai, who is starting a nonprofit group to help victims of forced abortion, spoke of the pain women and children in China endure under the communist regime's One-Child Policy.

Mr. Fu described some instances of persecution Chinese face if they choose to become Christians. He particularly stressed the story of Alim, a Uyghur man imprisoned for his faith.

All the while, the three also prayed for those causing the suffering: the soldiers at Tiananmen, the bureaucrats administering the One-Child Policy and the regime's officials.

Story Continues →

Killer in China School Stabbing Knew His Victims

BEIJING — The mystery over a series of vicious attacks on schoolchildren across China deepened Thursday, as reports emerged indicating that the latest and deadliest round of slaughter was committed not by a stranger to his victims, but rather by a man well known to them and their families, someone probably seen near the school almost every day.

Meanwhile, in Hangzhou, the provincial capital of Zhejiang Province, police officers detained a woman on Thursday morning after she stormed into a youth center brandishing a rusty knife, according to a worker at the center and photographs posted by a local newspaper. (By Thursday night, the photographs and an accompanying article had been removed from the newspaper’s Web site, possibly in keeping with government pressure to mute coverage.)

The officers stopped the woman before she harmed anyone, and it was unclear what she had intended to do, the worker said in a telephone interview. The previous five attacks on schoolchildren were all committed by men.

The assailant in the Wednesday attack, Wu Huanming, 48, was the landlord of the Shengshui Temple private kindergarten and had been having frequent disputes with the school administrator, Wu Hongying, over when the school would move out of the building, Chinese news organizations said in early reports. So far, there are no suggestions that the two were related.

Mr. Wu barged into the school with a kitchen cleaver on Wednesday morning and hacked and killed Ms. Wu and a student, then wounded 18 other people, including Ms. Wu’s 80-year-old mother. She and six pupils died of their injuries. Mr. Wu killed himself at his home.

Read more at The New York Times

W&L Law Student Blogs Her Way to China

A third-year law student at Washington and Lee University has earned a trip to China on the basis of her real-time blogging of a symposium about international investment disputes.

Massie Payne will serve as an expert assistant for the United Nations Conference on Trade Development (UNCTAD) International Investment Agreements Conference 2010 in Xiamen, China. She was chosen by organizers of the Washington and Lee and United Nations Joint Symposium on International Investment and Alternative Dispute Resolution, held on March 29 in Lexington, Virginia.

Payne and other W&L law students reported on the conference as it unfolded. Their posts and discussion threads using social media tools like Facebook and Twitter informed interested parties around the world about the topics under discussion in the Lewis Hall’s Millhiser Moot Courtroom in Lexington.

Real-time reporting from public events such as conferences, concerts and sporting events via social media tools is increasingly popular in an era of instant communication. These "iReporters" allow fans and followers to participate in important events happening anywhere and anytime, even on the other side of the world.

This was the critical service that W&L students provided during the symposium. As they kept interested parties informed, the students were also vying for the title of "Best Blogger," which Payne won.

At the Joint Symposium, over 80 practitioners, scholars and government officials from around the world joined the students in attendance to augment conference dialog through posts on a Facebook group page and through Twitter using a dedicated conference "hashtag." Still others watched the live web feed and joined in as well through the social networking sites.

Read more at Rockbridge Weekly & Alleghany Journal

Hong Kong Police Arrest Two More After Record Cocaine Discovery

April 28 (Bloomberg) -- Hong Kong police arrested two more men in relation to the accidental discovery of a record 372kg of cocaine earlier this week.

The arrests bring to 10 the number of people detained after officers investigating a missing person report stumbled across the drugs, estimated by police to be worth up to HK$337 million ($43.4 million), on the rooftop of a village house close to the border with mainland China. Two men and two women have been charged with drug-trafficking offences, a police statement said.

Chang Ma-ki, a Dutch passport holder, was reported missing on April 23 after telling his wife to contact police if he didn’t return from a meeting in relation to the drugs, the South China Morning Post reported, citing an unidentified police officer.

Read more at BusinessWeek

China executes killer of eight school children

Zheng was put to death one month after the attack

A former community doctor who killed eight school children in China's eastern Fujian province has been executed, state media say.

Zheng Minsheng, 42, was shot in the city of Nanping after China's top court approved his sentence, Xinhua news agency reported.

The execution came one month after he stabbed eight young children to death at a primary school in the same city.

Police said he carried out the attack after breaking up with a girlfriend.

Reports at the time of the attack had suggested he had a history of mental illness, but state media later quoted police as saying that was not the case.

Five other children were injured in the 23 March attack.

Zheng was convicted on 8 April and had appealed unsuccessfully against his death sentence.

BBC

China plans sweeping powers for cops

BEIJING: Chinese government's plans to empower police to detain suspects up to 37 days without charge without having to pay compensation, has raised concerns that such "sweeping powers" could be used to stem rising dissidence and protests.

Police departments need not pay compensation to suspects detained for up to 37 days even if they are later not charged with any crime, according to the latest draft amendment to the State Compensation Law which country's top legislature has started to review, state run China Daily reported on Tuesday.

The Criminal Procedure Law permits police to detain suspects for seven days. But if the suspect is believed to be involved in multiple or gang crimes, the detention can be extended for another 30 days.

Read more at The Times of India

China Chafes at Its Sexual Liberalization

BEIJING — In a photograph on his lawyer’s Web site, Ma Yaohai stares straight at the camera, cheekbones prominent above sunken cheeks, his expression intense, almost haunted. The 53-year-old computer scientist, dressed soberly in a dark jacket and polo-neck pullover, holds a sign saying: “Swinging is no crime.”

Unfortunately for Mr. Ma, it is. Article 301 of China’s criminal law bans “crowd promiscuity,” with offenders liable to five years in jail.

On April 7, Mr. Ma and 21 other members of his swingers’ circle were tried in the central city of Nanjing on group sex charges, in a case that is roiling society and provoking heated debates in academic circles, among friends and in the blogosphere. Prosecutors accuse the twice-divorced Mr. Ma, who has since been fired from his job as a professor at Nanjing University of Technology, of organizing and taking part in at least 18 group sex parties between 2007 and 2009. Fourteen were in his own home, four in hotels and the rest in unspecified locations, according to his lawyer, Xue Huogen.

No verdict has yet emerged from the two-day trial, during which Mr. Ma was the only defendant to plead not guilty.

Read more at The New York Times

Officials protected 'majority of gangs'

Chongqing High People's Court says total of 24 officials involved

BEIJING - More than half of the gangs busted in the crackdown in Chongqing municipality last year were protected by government officials, the Chongqing High People's Court said in a report released on Thursday.

Twenty-four government officials are either under investigation or face prosecution for cover-ups and conniving with mafia-style gangs, said the report, which included an analysis of the 29 cases handled by the municipality's court last year.

"Some officials didn't follow their duties to prohibit certain acts. Some of them illegally released information of cases under investigation. Some made it seem the criminals surrendered to the police to cover up bigger crimes. And some abused their power to prevent other officials from carrying out their duties," the report said.

Read more at China Daily

36m copies of illegal publications destroyed

China has destroyed 36 million copies of pirated and illegal publications in its 31 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, in a bid to show the government's determination in protecting intellectual property, the Guangming Daily reported Monday.

Each year in celebrating World Intellectual Property Day, which falls on April 26, China will hold activities nationwide to destroy pirated and illegal publications, in order to increase public awareness of intellectual property protection.

A total of 15 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities each destroyed more than 1 million copies of pirated and illegal publications in this year's activity.

It was reported that China had obtained 8.48 million illegal publications and handled 1,894 intellectual property infringement cases in the first quarter of this year in a bid to create a good cultural environment for the Shanghai Word Expo.

China Daily

Long-hated one-child rule may be eased in China

DAFENG, China — When asked why she and her husband do not want a second child, Shi Xiaomei smiles at her pudgy 9-year-old son and does a quick tally of the family budget.

Her salary as a cleaning lady and the income from a mahjong parlor in their spare room barely cover their son's school fees and other expenses.

"With just one, we can give him nicer things. But if you tried to split what we have between two or three, they would all end up with nothing," the 34-year-old says at her home in Dafeng, a prosperous but still-rural county 185 miles (300 kilometers) north of Shanghai.

For years, China curbed its once-explosive population growth with a widely hated one-child limit that at its peak led to forced abortions, sterilizations and even infanticide. Now the long-sacrosanct policy may be on its way out, as some demographers warn that China is facing the opposite problem: not enough babies.

A stroll down the dirt path linking Shi's close-knit neighborhood suggests why.

Read more at The Huffington Post

Microsoft wins software piracy lawsuit in China

The Shanghai Pudong New Area district court ruled Thursday Microsoft must be paid 2.17 million yuan ($317,900) from Dazhong Insurance as compensation for using pirated Microsoft software.

"This is the first case in which Microsoft has taken a large Chinese company to court over copyright infringement of its software," Microsoft stated. "It is also the case in which Microsoft has been awarded the largest sum in damages in China so far."

Microsoft accused the insurance company of installing and using at least 450 sets of nine pirated Microsoft programs, including Windows, Office and some database software and asked for compensation of 2.25 million yuan.

Established in 1995, Dazhong Insurance is a Shanghai-based insurer jointly established by 26 Chinese State-owned and listed companies.

Yu Weidong, Microsoft China's senior director on intellectual property, said he hopes the final ruling on this case will help deter the use of the counterfeit software in large enterprises.

In fact, Microsoft had contacted Dazhong Insurance many times from 2008 and 2009 about using the pirated software, but was ignored, which led the software giant to file a lawsuit in May 2009, Yu explained.

The Global Times

Jail terms for Shanghai collapse

Underground digging eroded the foundations of the apartment build

Two men have been jailed in China for corruption linked to the collapse of a building that left one worker dead.

Que Jingde and Zhang Zhiqin of Shanghai Meidu Real Estate both received life terms for the June 2009 collapse.

According to China Daily, Zhang had allowed an unqualified contractor to build an underground car park.

This, combined with a large pile of excavated earth on the other side of the building, caused it to topple to one side, the paper said.

Read more at The BBC

Ask the Yangxifu: Change your name after marriage in China?

To change names or not [after marrying a Chinese in China], and if yes, how?

Should you change your name after marrying a Chinese national? And how to do it in China?

When you marry a Chinese, it challenges many cultural assumptions about what matrimony is, and how we announce it. White dress or red qipao (or even both)? Hotel or church?

And, perhaps, even more puzzling — should she change her name, or not?

See, in China, women don’t change their names after marriage. In many Western countries, women do.

So, the question is, which tradition should you follow?

Tianjin Shannon, not long ago, wondered just that as she pondered what to do after marrying her Chinese husband — and some of the comments she received illustrate possible options for a woman.

So, here goes…

Read more at Ask the Yangxifu

2 China lawyers who defended Falun Gong face ban

BEIJING — Two Chinese lawyers who represented a Falun Gong practitioner face the permanent loss of their legal licenses – a new government tactic to tighten its grip on human rights defenders.

Dozens of lawyers are expected to attend Thursday's hearing in support of Tang Jitian and Liu Wei, who are accused of "disrupting the order of the court" during an April 2009 trial in which they defended a follower of the banned spiritual group.

The two lawyers say they were illegally videotaped during the trial, interrupted repeatedly by the judge and ordered out of the courtroom by unidentified men.

An e-mail circulating among Chinese lawyers Wednesday said Tang and Liu would be the first lawyers in Beijing, where most rights lawyers are based, to lose their licenses permanently without having a criminal conviction.

Read more at The Huffington Post

South Chinese prosecutors jail two cult leaders

Changsha (China), Apr.21 (ANI): Prosecutors in the Changsha area of China's southern Hunan Province have jailed two persons for pursuing local cult activities.

Chen Wenbin was sentenced to four years in jail and Li Juanlan to three years and six months for promoting activities of the banned Shijishen, or Real God, cult, the China Daily quoted prosecutors, as saying on Tuesday.

Administrative director Xiao of the Beihu Procuratorate of Chenzhou City said Chen was the "life executive" responsible for all local cult activities.

He managed the delivery of all promotional brochures, books and videos from Guangdong Province to Chenzhou City, where Li took over.

Li, chief steward of the cult since October 2008, was in charge of the distribution of the materials and collected 4,000 to 5,000 yuan per month from cult members, Xiao said.

The pair were convicted and sentenced at the People's Court of Beihu on April 15, said Xiao.

The Shijishen cult was founded in 1993 in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province.

It was listed as a cult by China's central government in 1995.

oneindia

Corruption in a state of flux

BEIJING - The basis of human rights is fairness of the law, granting people freedom of action - of which the right to free expression is one part. This idea makes it even harder to approach the issue of human rights in China, as it is not simply the issue of dissidents voicing their opposition, it is also an issue ingrained in the very structure of the exercise of power in China.

If you have been to China for more than a short vacation, say more than a month, in the past 15 years, you will have certainly encountered what most Chinese people also experience for a great part of their daily lives - the wall of a legal system that it is at times insurmountable and at others easy to bypass.

If you want to do anything that a normal middle-class person does routinely in his or her life, from building your own house to buying a car, you have to factor in from a few days to several months of legal procedures. The time varies on the whim of the official, your ability to move within or outside the system, and your willingness to bend or ignore the law. But most importantly, regulations change, are too many, and are too cumbersome to apply, and so the best way to go about anything is get guanxi, the complex word that is part of the Chinese soul and can be loosely translated as "connections", but with deeper meaning and stronger roots.

Read more at Asia Times Online