Two Tibetan cousins set themselves on fire in China Latest protest calling for Tibetan independence brings the number of self-immolations in China to seven in one week 
Associated Press in Beijing 

guardian.co.uk, Saturday 27 October 2012 22.25 EDT 

Two Tibetan cousins set fire to themselves in their village to protest Chinese rule, bringing the total number of self-immolations this week to seven, the highest since the protests began last year, a rights group said on Saturday. The London-based group Free Tibet said cousins Tsepo, 20, and Tenzin, 25, called for independence for Tibet as they set themselves on fire on Thursday in front of a government building in their village in Biru county north of Lhasa, Tibet's main city. Tsepo reportedly died and Tenzin's condition was unknown after he was taken away by authorities, Free Tibet said.

Dozens of ethnic Tibetans have set themselves on fire in heavily Tibetan regions since March 2011 to protest what activists say is Beijing's heavy-handed rule in the region. Many have called for the return of the Dalai Lama, their exiled spiritual leader. The protests have intensified as Beijing nears a once-a-decade power transfer in early November. On Friday, a 24-year-old Tibetan farmer, Lhamo Tseten, died from self-immolation near a military base and a government office in Amuquhu town in Xiahe county in western China's Gansu province, Free Tibet said. China's official Xinhua News Agency reported the self-immolation of a Tibetan man by the same name, though it gave slightly different details. Xinhua said Lhamo was a 23-year-old villager and that he set himself on fire near a hospital.

Later on Friday, Tsepag Kyab, 21, set fire to himself and died, also in Amuquhu town, the self-declared Tibetan government-in-exile said. Earlier reports said three other Tibetans died after setting themselves on fire in the past week in Xiahe county. Calls to local governments in the area rang unanswered Saturday. Xiahe is home to Labrang Monastery, one of the most important outside of Tibet and the site of numerous protests by monks following deadly ethnic violence in Tibet in 2008 that was the most sustained Tibetan uprising against Chinese rule in decades. Police in the region are offering a reward of $7,700 (£4,700) for information about planned self-immolations in a bid to stem the protests.

Tibetan Protest

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Tibetan sets himself ablaze in India before Chinese leader visits
March 26, 2012 | 7:29am
Mark Magnier


REPORTING FROM NEW DELHI -- A Tibetan set himself on fire Monday before running several hundred feet down a busy New Delhi street, suffering critical burns in advance of a visit by Chinese President Hu Jintao.

The protester, identified by Tibetan activists as Janphel Yeshi, 27, attempted the self-immolation at Jantar Mantar, an open area where rallies and demonstrations are often held. Media reports, citing witnesses, said Yeshi yelled as he ran along the road dressed in a sweater and dark trousers, black smoke pouring from his hair.

“Basically he was on fire for almost 10 minutes before the police arrived,” said Rinzin Choedon, a chapter coordinator with Students for a Free Tibet, an activist group. “Personally, I’m totally against this sort of immolation. Our struggle is not just for today or tomorrow. If we lose our human power and resources, how can we continue the struggle?”

Tibet has been a vassal state of China for much of its history. In 1950, the Chinese military took control, leading to the exile in 1959 of the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader.

Many Tibetans in China bridle at Chinese rule, arguing that their religion, culture and traditions are being systematically smothered by Beijing under policies aimed at relocating large numbers of Han Chinese to the plateau.

This is the second attempted self-immolation in New Delhi, which is home to thousands of Tibetans who have crossed over the Himalayan mountains from China. In November, a man suffered minor burns when he tried to set himself alight outside the heavily guarded, barbed-wire ringed Chinese Embassy before police doused the flames.

“This is very unfortunate,” said Tempa Tsering, the Dalai Lama’s representative in New Delhi. “It’s because of the policies of the repressive [Chinese] government.”

Hu is scheduled to arrive in the Indian capital Wednesday to attend a summit on the so-called BRICS nations of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
Since the beginning of 2011, more than two dozen Tibetans, including many Buddhist monks and nuns, have reportedly set themselves ablaze in the Tibetan area of China to protest Beijing’s rule.

Some activists described Yeshi as unemployed, a resident of the main Tibetan exiles' neighborhood in Delhi who fled China in 2005. Others said he did odd jobs at a small monastery. He reportedly had been planning the protest for days, arriving at Jantar Mantar with a bottle of kerosene he poured over himself.

The Associated Press reported that he ran about 160 feet in flames before collapsing. At the time, dozens of people were attending a Tibetan protest rally nearby. Dr T.S. Sidhu, medical supervisor at Delhi’s Ram Manohar Lohia hospital where he was taken, said Yeshi is in critical condition with burns on 90% of his body.

China often blames India for fomenting unrest in Tibet. India’s mountainous northern town of Dharamsala is home to the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government in exile.

“China can’t even blame India for this, though,” said Mohan Guruswamy, a China expert with New Delhi’s Center for Policy Alternatives, a think tank. “There’ve been some 28 immolations in China. India urges China to talk to the Tibetans. They’re so unhappy, you have to at least talk.”

Opinions differ over how effective the drastic tactic of self-immolation is. Guruswamy said as gruesome as it is, the tactic draws attention to the Tibetan plight in the same way the self-immolation of monks during the Vietnam War helped turn public opinion worldwide against the conflict.

Others disagreed.

“I’m not sure it’s going to galvanize public opinion,” said Rukmani Gupta, an associate fellow at Delhi’s Institute for Defense Studies and Analyses, a think tank. “What you have is young people losing their lives. That’s not necessarily any gain toward talks between Beijing and Dharamsala.”

Chinese See Communist Land Sales Hurting Mao’s Poor to Pay Rich
November 02, 2011, 5:34 AM EDT - Bloomberg.com

Oct. 24 (Bloomberg) -- Bulldozers razed Li Liguang’s farmhouse four years ago after officials in the Chinese city of Loudi told him the land was needed for a 30,000-seat stadium.

What Li, 28, says they didn’t tell him is that he would be paid a fraction of what his plot was worth and get stuck living in a cinder-block home, looking on as officials do what he never could: Grow rich off his family’s land.

It’s a reversal of one of the core principles of the Communist Revolution. Mao Zedong won the hearts of the masses by redistributing land from rich landlords to penniless peasants. Now, powerful local officials are snatching it back, sometimes violently, to make way for luxury apartment blocks, malls and sports complexes in a debt-fueled building binge.

City governments rely on land sales for much of their revenue because they have few sources of income such as property taxes. They’re increasingly seeking to cash in on real estate prices that have risen 140 percent since 1998 by appropriating land and flipping it to developers for huge profits.

“The high price of land leads to local governments being predatory,” said Andy Xie, an independent economist based in Shanghai who was formerly Morgan Stanley’s chief Asia economist. “China’s land policy is really screwed up.”

The evictions are alarming the nation’s leaders, who have taken steps to tackle the problem and are concerned about social stability. Land disputes are the leading cause of surging unrest across China, according to an official study published in June. The number of so-called mass incidents -- protests, riots, strikes and other disturbances -- doubled in five years to almost 500 a day in 2010, according to Sun Liping, a sociology professor at Beijing’s Tsinghua University.

Final Insult

There’s more to come. Some 60 million farmers will be uprooted over the next two decades as the urbanization that propelled China to the world’s second-largest economy gathers pace, according to an estimate by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. In many cases, officials take land they don’t use, an August report from the academy said.

That was the final insult for Li. The rice and bean plot his family farmed for generations still lies empty, weeds sprouting from the red earth. Villagers are convinced that the city has sold it to developers, even though they can’t point to any documentation to prove it.

“They flattened the land and still haven’t used it,” says Li, a wiry man with short-cropped hair, sitting inside the hut he built in a garbage-strewn alleyway across a main road from the stadium. “They sold it for I don’t know how many millions of yuan.”

Officials in Loudi, located in central China in Mao’s home province of Hunan, wouldn’t answer questions about whether plots in Li’s village were sold or what they will be used for.

50 Million Evicted

Li is among 50 million farmers who’ve lost their homes over the past three decades since Deng Xiaoping began breaking up Mao’s collectivized farms to make way for factories, roads and airports, according to numbers from the academy. Turning people like him into more economically active citizens is part of an urbanization policy that has swelled city dwellers to about 50 percent of the population, from 21 percent in 1982, according to official census data.

Termed “chaiqian” in Chinese, the demolition and relocation of communities has become increasingly controversial. Cities have been grabbing land to finance operations and pay back or restructure mushrooming debt that reached at least 10.7 trillion yuan ($1.68 trillion) by the end of 2010. Almost a quarter of that is backed by land, according to China’s National Audit Office.

The money paid for the building spree that was designed to maintain China’s economic growth in the wake of the global recession. Loans were obtained through more than 10,000 financing vehicles cities created to get around laws prohibiting them from borrowing, according to a central bank count.

Low Compensation

Cities may have to accelerate land sales as they struggle to repay the debt, said Victor Shih, a professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, who studies China’s local- government finances. There’s also an incentive for officials to keep payments to farmers as low as possible, he said.

“Without suppressing land compensation, local governments can’t make the margins to pay back the banks,” Shih said. “In essence, they are the engines of inequality in China. Land development is the redistribution of income from average households to rich households.”

Loudi is one of 186 local authorities from Guangxi on the Vietnamese frontier in the south to Heilongjiang on the Russian border in the north that issued bonds or short-term notes through financing vehicles in the first nine months of this year. Some 105 of them said they engage in “chaiqian,” according to their prospectuses.

Rights Violated

The seizures frequently lead to local officials violating farmers’ rights that the national government has sought to improve since 1998 when it gave them 30-year tenure over their land, said Gao Yu, China director for Landesa, a Seattle-based group formerly known as the Rural Development Institute that studies global land issues.

Rules that prohibit authorities leaving land like Li’s idle for more than two years are also often broken, Gao said. Across China, compensation given to farmers is at least 15 times lower than prices for land sold to development, according to Landesa.

“The local governments earn a lot of money from the price difference between what they compensate farmers and villagers for their land and what they sell to developers,” said Wang Erping, a scholar at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing who studies social unrest. “This is really objectionable, but these governments don’t have any alternative to raise money.”

Collision Course

Land sales make up 30 percent of total local government revenue and in some cities account for more than half, according to Wang Tao, a Hong Kong-based economist for UBS AG.

That’s putting city bosses on a collision course with national leaders who were already struggling to contain lending to local governments and reverse rising property prices. A central government circular in April said some local governments took excessive land for property development, resulting in the forced eviction of farmers. Such evictions are considered a “gross violation of human rights” by the United Nations.

President Hu Jintao said in August that developers should stop using arable land for building new projects, while Premier Wen Jiabao in September criticized the role local officials are playing in land grabs, according to state media.

Premier’s Criticism

“Right now, some areas just brutally destroy farmers’ homes without paying attention to their rights, and put the farmers in apartment blocks,” Wen, 69, said at a symposium in Beijing to discuss the safeguarding of China’s cultural traditions, according to the account in the state media. In March, Wen called for urbanization to be accelerated.

A crackdown has led to 57 officials being punished for 11 demolitions that resulted in deaths of residents so far this year, the government said on Sept. 25.

Videos of people being forced out of their homes, sometimes by gangs wielding sticks, have caused public outrage when posted online on websites.

One farmer from the city of Fuzhou in Jiangxi province, first took his anger out on weibo, China’s version of Twitter. Qian Mingqi wrote that he had lost 2 million yuan because of inadequate compensation after he said officials illegally demolished his home to make way for a highway.

Then, on May 26, he detonated three bombs by government buildings killing himself and two others, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

Fuzhou’s investment vehicle went to the country’s bond market this year for the first time, raising 800 million yuan to build sewage treatment works and flood control works. In its prospectus, the company said its main business included construction, land development and “resettlement.”

‘Avalanche of Demolitions’

“Forced evictions are one of the biggest sources of public unrest and public dissatisfaction with the government because they are unstoppable,” said Phelim Kine, a senior Asia researcher with New York-based Human Rights Watch. “We’ve seen an avalanche of forced evictions and illegal demolitions.”

The trend is also exacerbating rural-urban wealth disparity that Landesa’s Gao says is the greatest challenge confronting China’s leaders today. Incomes in cities are now more than three times those in rural areas, wider than at any time since Deng started economic reforms.

The government is working on ways to increase farmers’ income, Zhou Qiang, the Communist Party secretary in Hunan Province where Loudi is located, said in an interview in Beijing on Oct. 19. That includes providing skills training to make them employable in cities and ensuring farmers are adequately covered by social security, he said.

Land acquisition and relocation must be done according to law and there are “clear policy and legal provisions” to protect farmers’ interests, he said.

Artificially High prices

One problem is that the value of urban land is artificially inflated because it’s kept scarce by China’s quota of maintaining 1.8 billion mu (120 million hectares) of arable land, says analyst Xie.

Officials in Loudi have run up more than 4 billion yuan in debt, expanding a provincial town into a city of 4 million people with a new railway station, six-lane expressway and a white colonnaded government building.

Where Li and about 70 other villagers for generations tended plots in Dawu village, now sits the freshly built stadium, a bulb-shaped gymnasium and a wavy-glass-covered aquatic center where kids line up to swim.

Family of Nine

Li’s family of nine -- including his wife, first child, parents and brother’s family -- had lived in a 400-square-meter two-story farmhouse on almost a half-acre of land. He said he didn’t worry about feeding them, and he was able to pay for extras by selling his vegetables a couple times a month in the city and doing odd jobs.

“It was a reliable income,” said Li. “Before we had food to eat. Now if I don’t work as a laborer, we don’t have anything.”

Then came the evictions. The sports bureau took about 47 acres of land in Dawu and another village, issuing notices -- and verbal threats -- in 2006 saying it was needed for the stadium.

“They told us that if we didn’t move, they would send a lot of people to destroy our house,” Li said. “If you didn’t agree they would detain you.”

Villagers were initially relocated to the alleyway where they built shanties with tarp and corrugated-tin roofs. The only bright notes are the red scrolls bearing the Chinese characters for good fortune that adorn some front doors.

From the lane, Li can see the stadium gleaming at one end and new luxury high-rise buildings to the other.

Temporary Home

Li’s shelter was supposed to be a temporary home while he builds a house on the 70-square-meter (754 sq. ft) plot the city gave him about 100 meters further south. He said his family of nine received 280,000 yuan in compensation, not enough to finish construction of their new home. Unable to get bank loans, he borrowed 100,000 yuan from family and friends.

That still wasn’t enough, putting Li in a Catch 22: without a loan he can’t finish his house, and without a house he has no collateral for a loan.

Most of Li’s income is spent on groceries, he said. Food inflation in China was running at 13.4 percent in September.

“The renminbi is appreciating everywhere in the world, but in China it’s depreciating,” Li said one late August evening, smoking a White Sand cigarette and sipping bootleg liquor in a restaurant overlooking paddy fields.

Putrid Stream

The only beans the family grows now are cultivated by Li’s mother on a four-square meter plot behind the temporary home, where the stench of a putrid bright green stream hangs in the air. Stooped, with gray hair, she recalls the well water they had access to before that was so clean she could wash with it.

Officials say the development is benefitting Loudi residents as it seeks to cash in on its location on a major high-speed rail route linking Shanghai in the east to Kunming in the west. The stadium was partly funded by a 1.2 billion yuan bond issue in March by the city’s financing vehicle -- Loudi City Construction Investment Group Co. -- that pledged to repay with proceeds from selling land.

“People’s lives have improved,” Yang Haibo, an official at the city’s financing vehicle, said during an interview at his office in June. Yang wouldn’t talk in follow-up calls and the company didn’t respond to faxed requests for comment. The city government also didn’t respond to calls and faxes.

‘Hoarding Land’

Some Dawu villagers say their lives have gotten worse, not better.

Wu Zifei, 27 and a father of two, takes out a compact disc with pictures of his old house one July afternoon in his family’s store in the new Dawu village. Li likes to play cards there with friends on days when they can’t find work.

“The older place was much better,” said Wu, a thin man who waves his arms as he talks. Wu continued to use the old family plot -- which like Li’s has been left unused behind a mound of earth at the edge of the stadium construction site -- until June, when a mudslide killed his crop of corn.

“They are hoarding land, waiting for the prices to rise,” he said. “I really can’t stand the way authorities do things.”

Other Dawu residents say they were left homeless because they weren’t allocated any city land. Zou Fuqiu’s home was demolished in 2010, following an eviction order in August 2009.

“It breaks my heart that they demolished my home,” said Zou, 59, a stout man who rolls his white shirt up above his stomach to cool himself from Hunan’s mid-summer heat. “It was the best house in the village, but they didn’t compensate us accordingly.”

Wife Cried

He went to see the village cadre at his office to plead for land, where he says his wife sat crying beside him for three hours. It was no use. Instead, Zou built a shack on unoccupied wasteland where he hangs two old black and white photos of his parents in revolutionary jackets and a portrait of Mao, near a small Buddhist shrine.

“They tore my house down with no regard for where I would live, but they themselves live in high-class homes,” said Zou of the officials. Behind him in the dusk, a chandelier turns on inside one of the stadium buildings.

Loudi city officials work in a building with five white domes and an archway entrance, nicknamed “the White House” by locals. There have been two separate purges for corruption in the past five years, including the removal of 16 officials in August, according to the official Hunan Daily newspaper.

Hundreds of meters from the main entrance to the building, a small door has a gold plaque that says petitioners can be received there. Petitioning is the practice dating from imperial times by which people take their complaints either to local officials or directly to the capital.

Low Compensation

The compensation that Dawu villagers say they received works out at about 6 percent of what the city was selling land for in 2008, a year after they were evicted. Dawu natives said they received 38,000 yuan per mu, a Chinese measure of land that is about one-sixth of an acre. That’s less than half the average of 85,420 yuan the Loudi city government says it paid, according to a notice on the website of its land resources bureau.

The land is worth many times even the higher figure. Loudi city in 2008 sold its land to developers for 600,000 yuan per mu, according to the bond prospectus. A similar plot to Li’s near the stadium sold in March for 1.2 million yuan per mu, according to the website of the city’s State Land Resources Bureau.

It would take Li 92 years to earn enough to buy back his still-vacant plot at that price based on his present wage rate as a day laborer.

Daily Struggle

Li’s focus is on the daily struggle to feed his family and finish his new home. He wishes officials would start building on his land, giving him the chance to pick up some work. Ultimately, he hopes to use the home as collateral to borrow money to buy a digger so he can earn more money at construction sites.

In his hut, where the only decoration is a vase of yellow plastic flowers and a 2009 calendar celebrating the 60th anniversary of the Communist state, he laments the loss of his old, simpler way of life.

“Our house was not like this before,” he said. “Five years ago I had my own house, and everything surrounding it was mine.”

--Henry Sanderson, Michael Forsythe. With assistance from Bob Ivry in New York and Neil Western in Hong Kong. Editors: Neil Western, Melissa Pozsgay.

To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Henry Sanderson in Beijing at hsanderson@bloomberg.net. Michael Forsythe in Beijing at mforsythe@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Melissa Pozsgay at mpozsgay@bloomberg.net. Peter Hirschberg at phirschberg@bloomberg.net Shelley Smith at ssmith118@bloomberg.net

Tibetan Self-Immolations Rise as China Tightens Grip

By ANDREW JACOBS
March 22, 2012 - NYtimes.com

MAQU, China — Like many children of Tibetan nomads, Tsering Kyi started school relatively late, at age 10, but by all accounts she made up for lost time by studying with zeal.

“Even when she was out at pasture with her parents’ flock, there was always a book in her hand,” a cousin said.

That passion for learning apparently turned to despair this month when the Maqu County Tibetan Middle School, in Gansu Province near Tibet, switched to Chinese from Tibetan as the language of instruction. The policy shift has incited protests across the high-altitude steppe that is home to five million Tibetans and a far greater number of ethnic Han Chinese.

On March 3, a few days before the start of the spring semester, Tsering Kyi, 20, emerged from a public toilet at the town’s produce market, her wispy frame bound in gasoline-soaked blankets that had been encircled with wire, relatives and local residents said.

In a flash she was a heap of flames, her fist raised defiantly, before falling to the ground, residents said. She died at the scene.

Over the past year 29 Tibetans, seven of them in the last three weeks, have chosen a similarly agonizing, self-annihilating protest against Chinese policies. Of those, 22 have died.

Beijing, alarmed about the threat to stability in a region seething with discontent over religious and cultural controls, has responded with an assortment of heavy-handed measures. Officials have described the self-immolators as outcasts and terrorists, blamed the pernicious influence of Tibetan exiles and flooded the region with checkpoints and paramilitary police officers in flak jackets.

Communist Party leaders have also introduced a “monastic management” plan to more directly control religious life. As part of the plan, 21,000 party officials have been sent to Tibetan communities with the goal of “befriending” monks — and creating dossiers on each of them. Compliant clergy members are rewarded with health care benefits, pensions and television sets; the recalcitrant are sometimes expelled from their monasteries.

At some temples, monks and nuns have been forced to publicly denounce the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader whose name is often invoked by self-immolators. The freedom of movement that allowed monks to study at distant monasteries across Tibet and four adjacent provinces has been curtailed.

“They claim we are free to practice our religion but in fact they keep pulling the reins tighter and tighter so we can hardly breathe,” said a 22-year-old monk from Qinghai Province, who like many Tibetans keeps banned pictures of the Dalai Lama in his room and on his cellphone.

Senior officials have trumpeted the new approach, which includes the distribution of one million national flags and portraits of Mao Zedong and other party leaders — with a requirement that they be displayed at homes and monasteries. “Temples have undergone a delightful change since the new management methods were put into place,” Xinza Danzengquzha, a top Tibetan official, said this month in Beijing.

Such measures, however, may be having the opposite intended effect. Robert Barnett, director of the Modern Tibet Studies Program at Columbia University, said that the government’s more intrusive approach to monasteries, the heart of Tibetan society, is a reversal of self-management policies put in place in the 1980s. “History suggests it is unlikely to work,” he said.

The antipathy, never far beneath the surface, is erupting into plain view with greater frequency. In the past week, several protests have broken out, including two in Qinghai Province that were led by students angry over the introduction of Chinese-language textbooks for subjects like chemistry, math and geography. In January, exile groups say 31 people were shot, at least one fatally, when police officers opened fire on demonstrators in Drango County, in Sichuan Province. In Diru County, in the Tibet Autonomous Region, 20 of the 22 monasteries have been closed, according to the Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy.

Spasms of unrest have coursed through modern Tibetan history with some regularity since 1959, when the Dalai Lama fled to India after a failed uprising. Between 1987 and 1989, the region was rocked by protests that were brutally crushed. The most recent crackdown began in March 2008, when rioting in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, led to the death of at least 19 people, most of them Han Chinese. In the weeks and months that followed, exile groups say a far greater number of Tibetans died.

But Tibetan scholars and exiles say the current resistance campaign is unlike anything seen before. The tactic — public, fiery suicides that do not harm bystanders or property — has profoundly moved ordinary Tibetans and bedeviled Chinese officials. Just as significant, they note, is that the protesters are mostly young — all but nine of them under 30.

Tsering Kyi was one of them. According to family members, she was a thoughtful student whose hard work earned her a place on the school’s honor roll. But in 2010, she joined classmates who took to the streets of this dusty county seat to protest the new Chinese-language textbooks and the decision to limit Tibetan to a single class. In the clampdown that followed, several teachers suspected of encouraging the protest were fired and the headmaster, a popular Tibetan writer, was sent to work on a dam project, according to local residents.

Tsering Kyi’s death has been widely publicized by Tibetan activist groups eager to draw attention to the self-immolations. The Chinese state news media, which has ignored most of the cases, reported that she was mentally unstable after hitting her head on a radiator. Her grades started to sag, the official Xinhua news agency said, “which put a lot of pressure on her and made her lose courage for life and study.”

In interviews, several Tibetan residents and relatives of Tsering Kyi’s contemptuously waved away such assertions. Instead, they were eager to discuss her devotion to her Tibetan heritage and the final moments of her life. When she emerged from the public toilets in flames, they said, the market’s Han Chinese vegetable sellers locked the front gate to prevent her from taking her protest to the street. No one, they claim, tried to douse the fire.

When the police arrived, they forced witnesses to remain inside the market and returned Tsering Kyi’s body to the bathroom. Then, after collecting everyone’s cellphones, they methodically went through the devices and deleted any photographs of the incident.

In interviews last week with two dozen monks and ordinary Tibetans in Qinghai and Gansu Provinces, many said that they expected the fiery suicides and protests to continue to spread beyond Aba, the county in Sichuan Province where the majority of the self-immolations have taken place. “From the outside, everything looks so pretty here, but on the inside, everyone is boiling.” said one lama at a monastery in Rebkong, a major tourist draw in Qinghai famous for its intricate thangka paintings.

The lama, who asked for anonymity because speaking to foreign reporters can lead to severe punishment, said monks were expected to attend “patriotic education” sessions that consist of pro-government propaganda. “I don’t want trouble with the authorities, but I can’t control their rage any longer,” he said of the monks.

In Gansu Province, security at the sprawling Labrang Monastery was visibly tighter, and emotions more raw. Monks there said the accumulation of indignities, years in the making, was followed by two days of street protests in 2008 that led to a wave of detentions and beatings.

Many Tibetan monks are unable to get passports and the Han, they said, often treat them with contempt. “We can’t even speak our minds on the phone because the police are listening in,” said one 39-year-old who ducked into a reporter’s hotel room to share details about life for Labrang’s 1,400 monks.

He described how the police had raided the white-walled monastery complex one night as everyone slept, kicking in doors, smashing computers and tearing up photographs of the Dalai Lama. At least 180 monks were detained that night. “They ran out of handcuffs, so they started tying our wrists with rope they found in the monastery,” he said.

The monks were eventually released but Labrang, one of the most important religious sites in Tibetan Buddhism, is a changed place. Video surveillance cameras hang from the eaves of hallowed temples and plainclothes police officers mingle with the faithful. “They never fool us because they hold their prayer beads with their right hand, and every Tibetan knows to hold them in their left hand,” one monk said.


Shi Da contributed research.


Horrific anti-China protests become Tibet's norm
By Tim Sullivan Associated Press

Wednesday, March 21 2012 6:30 a.m. MDT


For more than a year the deadly protests have swept the Tibetan plateau, waves of people burning themselves alive in a widening challenge to Chinese rule.

The prime minister of Tibet's government-in-exile calls them acts of desperation. The Dalai Lama says they give China an excuse for even harsher crackdowns. But to many Tibetans, they are carefully reasoned attempts to bring attention to an often-forgotten cause.

"These are intelligent people who knew what they were doing," said Tenzin Choekyi of the Tibetan Youth Congress, a prominent Dharmsala, India-based activist group. "What is the ultimate thing you can offer? It's your life."

In Tibet, the horrific has become normal.

More than two dozen Tibetans, many in their teens or 20s, have set themselves on fire since early 2011 in an unprecedented series of suicide-protests. In the moments before they are overwhelmed by pain or tackled by Chinese security, they cry out for the Dalai Lama's return to Tibet, for an end to China's crackdowns or for their homeland's independence.

There is little sign that the immolations could lead to a broad uprising. But they have embarassed Beijing and are testing Chinese policies across the Tibetan plateau. The protests also have taken place far from the Tibetan heartland, showing opposition to Beijing's rule is geographically more widespread than ever.

Most of the immolations have occurred in ethnic Tibetan regions in China's Sichuan and Qinghai provinces.

While the most restive towns have been effectively sealed off, some details have emerged: the Buddhist monk who drank gasoline before dousing himself with fuel and setting himself alight; the two young men who set themselves on fire, then ran together into the streets shouting for the return of the Dalai Lama; the nun, seen in a video distributed by activists, walking along a busy street engulfed in flames.

At one point, a woman tosses a white scarf — a Tibetan offering of respect — at her feet.

"The self-immolations don't hurt anybody else. They just want people to see that there are problems here," said a young schoolteacher in trendy faded jeans in the small Tibetan town of Hongyuan, in China's Sichuan province. He spoke on condition of anonymity fearing retribution by Chinese officials.

Until recently, though, such protests were rare among Tibetans, raised in an enveloping Buddhist culture that normally discourages suicide.

While there had been a handful of earlier Tibetan suicide protests, the recent surge began March 16, 2011, when a 20-year-old monk at Sichuan's Kirti monastery burned himself alive, apparently to mark the anniversary of a 2008 protest brutally crushed by Chinese forces.

The burnings spiked in October, and then again in January. There have been at least seven so far in March, activists say.

The Kirti monastery, which has emerged as a center of political activism, has been the focus of the protests, with at least 14 current and former monks among the self-immolators.

The monastery and the town around it, Aba, have been flooded with Chinese forces. Soldiers and police in riot gear now line the town's streets, and more have been posted inside the monastery. But they have been unable to stop the protests.

The roots of the self-immolations lie along Tibetan periphery. Aba, like most of the towns that have seen recent suicides, is well over 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) from the Tibetan capital of Lhasa.

Until the 1990s, China's most repressive policies were concentrated on the official Tibetan Autonomous Region, with Tibetans living to the east, in Sichuan and Qinghai, given freer reign. When protests shook Lhasa in the 1980s, they barely touched Sichuan.

"These areas had not been part of a Tibetan state for centuries, and were outside the administration of the old Tibetan government, yet now we often hear of people there raising the Tibetan flag or calling for freedom for Tibet," Robert Barnett, a professor of modern Tibetan history at Columbia University, said in an email.

"It's not that these people are radical, it is that China's policies, especially since its decision in the 1990s to insult the Dalai Lama and to treat monasteries as threats, has turned a formerly complex Tibetan cultural sphere into a relatively unified sphere of political dissent."

The trouble began in the late 1990s, as a divide between Beijing and Tibetans began growing over the Panchen Lama, the second-highest Tibetan religious leader. In 1995, the Dalai Lama named a 6-year-old boy as the reincarnated Panchen Lama. But the boy and his family soon disappeared, and Beijing gave another boy the title.

When monks in Sichuan spoke out, Beijing's policies began reaching deep into monastic life. Monks were pressed to accept the Panchen Lama, to declare their fealty to China, to denounce the Dalai Lama. As senior monks died, China forbade the traditional searches for reincarnated successors, forcing the monks to look abroad for guidance, toward more politicized monasteries in exile.

In Tibet, where monasteries often serve encompassing roles — school, cultural center, home to the sons of local families who have become monks — Beijing's moves created a bitter cycle of revolt and repression, with Tibetan protests leading to ever-more official interference, which in turn sparked more protests.


Aba now looks like an occupied town.

During a clandestine late February visit by an Associated Press reporter, roadblocks guarded every road into the town, while members of Chinese security forces massed along the main street and outside the monastery.

"People have never seen the type of restrictions that exist now in Aba," said Lobsang Yeshe, a monk from the town who fled to India more than a decade ago. He is now based at Kirti's brother monastery, in Dharmsala, which keeps in close contact with Aba.

He said the crackdown and what he calls "the invisible troubles" — everything from the influx of ethnic Han Chinese to Tibetan nomads encouraged to settle into permanent homes — have nurtured the self-immolations. Tibetans, he said, have no choice but to harm themselves in protest.

"The Tibetans who made the decision to self-immolate, who can question them?" he demanded. "This is their choice. This is their own method of nonviolence."

But why suicide by self-immolation? No one knows. Some see inspiration in the Arab spring, and the Tunisian vegetable seller who helped inspire it by setting himself on fire. Others look to a history of Buddhist immolators: Vietnamese monks who burned themselves alive in the 1960s, angry over government crackdowns; Chinese monks who killed themselves in political protests during the last imperial dynasty.

Beijing, though, sees them as part of a decades-long campaign by the Dalai Lama to carve Tibet away from China. Foreign ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told reporters that the Dalai Lama and his aides were trying to incite more self-immolations, calling their activities "terrorism in disguise."

The Dalai Lama, who fled Lhasa in 1959 and now lives in exile in India, insists he only wants more autonomy for Tibet.

A year after the suicides began, many details are unanswered. Many protesters have been dragged away by police, and it is unclear how many survived. Activists say dozens of people have been arrested, accused of encouraging the immolations.

Meanwhile, a handful of Tibetans have begun to speak out against the self-immolations.

Tsering Woeser, a well-known poet living under virtual house arrest in Beijing, posted a recent online appeal calling for an end to the suicides, signing the appeal with two other Tibetan intellectuals.

"Tibetans must cherish life and live with resilience. Regardless of the magnitude of oppression, our life is important, and we have to cherish it," the March 8 appeal said.

At least four Tibetans have set themselves on fire since then.

Sullivan reported from New Delhi and Dharmsala; Wong reported from Aba and Hongyuan; Associated Press writer Charles Hutzler contributed from Beijing.








22 self-immolations reported in past year
Published: March. 23, 2012 at 10:15 AM


MAQU, China, March 23 (UPI) -- Seven people have set themselves on fire in recent weeks in protest of Chinese policies against Tibetans, activists say.

The New York Times said China has tightened controls against the 5 million Tibetans who live in Gansu province, near Tibet. The newspaper said 22 Tibetans have died in the past year by self-immolation.

China blamed the deaths on the influence of Tibetan exiles and has boosted the police and military presence in the region. Thousands of Communist Party leaders have been sent to Tibetan communities to develop relationships with monks, rewarding those who are cooperative and sometimes expelling, from their monasteries, those who are not.

Monks and nuns have been forced to publicly denounce Tibet's exiled spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, the newspaper said Friday.

Student protests were reported in China's Qinghai province after the introduction of Chinese-language textbooks. Exile groups say one person was killed and 30 others injured when police fired at demonstrators in Drango County in Sichuan province.

The Tibetan Center for Human Rights and Democracy said 20 of 22 monasteries have been closed in Diru County in the Tibet Autonomous Region.

The New York Times said the most recent self-immolation death, that of a 20-year-old student named Tsering Kyi, has been widely publicized by Tibetan activists. The official Xinhua news agency said the young woman set herself on fire after a head injury caused her grades to decline.


© 2012 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

China tense as teen Tibet monk immolates self
Saibal Dasgupta, Times of India, Mar 18, 2011, 06.04am
Sichuan provinceRadio Free Asia-

BEIJING: Tension gripped politically-sensitive Aba county of southwest China's Sichuan province after a teenager Tibetan monk who set himself on fire died on Thursday. Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported quoting local Tibetans that the police put out the fire and then beat the monk to death.

The incident resulted in demonstrations by nearly 1,000 monks who shouted slogans and were dispersed by baton-wielding policemen. The police attack resulted in injuries to some of the demonstrators , it said. RFA also differed with the Chinese media on other counts, giving a different name for the monk describing him as Lobsang Phuntsog, aged 21.

Tibetan monastery sealed off following monk's death
Saturday, March 19, 2011 10:15 pm TWN
--chinapost.com--

International Campaign for Tibet (ICT) said the monks had rescued Phuntsog from the police, who started beating him after extinguishing the flames, and took him back to the monastery. The monks then took him to hospital, where he later died, ICT said.

Hundreds of monks and civilians then protested near the monastery, located in Aba county, the campaign group said, although residents contacted by AFP were unable to confirm the demonstrations were that large. Police detained an unknown number of monks, according to the ICT. Seven were later released, including three who had been detained prior to the protests, it said. One of the monks had a serious head injury.

According to ICT, this marks the second time a Kirti monk has set himself on fire since authorities imposed a broad crackdown across Tibet and neighboring regions of China with large Tibetan populations following the 2008 unrest. The death of Phuntsog sparked a demonstration in Dharamshala, the home of exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, where about 500 people gathered at the Indian hill town's main temple.

Speaking beside a photograph of the dead monk projected onto a screen, local civil society leaders gave speeches denouncing the death and Chinese government crackdowns, leading to cheers and chanting from the crowd. Organisers said they wanted to “remind the government of China that the seismic waves of Tunisia and the Middle Eastern countries have reached Tibet” according to a statement handed to AFP.

China's Great Firewall Father Speaks Out
Global Times
February 18 2011
By Fang Yunyu The father of the Great Firewall of China (GFW) has signed up to six virtual private networks (VPNs) that he uses to access some of the websites he had originally helped block.

"I have six VPNs on my home computer," says Fang Binxing, 50, president of the Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications. "But I only try them to test which side wins: the GFW or the VPN.

"I'm not interested in reading messy information like some of that anti-government stuff."

There's a popular joke circulating the Chinese mainland about Mark Zuckerberg's surprise visit to Beijing around Christmas last year: The frustrated Facebook president is said to have pleaded with local Chinese entrepreneurs to show him how to beat the Great Firewall.

"Ever since I landed here in China I can't log onto my Facebook account!" he tells them.

The joke might not be real, but the Great Firewall of China is very much alive, blocking the world's most popular websites including YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and WikiLeaks.

Fang's handiwork brought down on him an intense barrage of online criticism in December when he opened a microblog on Sina.com.

Within three hours, nearly 10,000 Web users left messages for the father of the Great Firewall. Few were complimentary.

Sacrifice for the country

As a self-described "scholar," Fang says he was only doing the right thing, and anyway, sticks and stones.

He confirms he was head designer for key parts of the Great Firewall reportedly launched in 1998 that came online about 2003.

Fang shut down his microblog account after a few days and has kept mum about the incident until now.

"I regard the dirty abuse as a sacrifice for my country," Fang says. "They can't get what they want so they need to blame someone emotionally: like if you fail to get a US visa and you slag off the US visa official afterwards."

This massive accumulation of sarcastic and ugly abuse of Fang all stemmed from his role in creating a technology that filters controversial keywords and blocks access to websites deemed sensitive.

Fang refuses to reveal how the Great Firewall works. Crossing hands over chest, he says, "It's confidential."

As to the future of his creation, that's not up to him, Fang says.

"My design was chosen in the end because my project was the most excellent," he says with a big, tight smile, then pauses. "The country urgently needed such a system at that time."

The year 1998 was a turning point for the development of the Internet in China, says Zhang Zhi'an, associate professor of the journalism school at Fudan University in Shanghai.

It was when portals Sina.com and Sohu.com first appeared and the number of Chinese mainland Web users hit 1 million. It was also when the government began paying serious attention to the Internet, he says.

"Building the Great Firewall was a natural reaction to something newborn and unknown," Zhang says.

Patient and rational

The father of the Great Firewall doesn't avoid defending the momentous Chinese mainland decision to monitor the flow of information on the Internet.

Such a firewall is a "common phenomenon around the world," he argues, and nor is China alone in monitoring and controlling the Internet.

"As far as I know, about 180 countries including South Korea and the US monitor the Internet as well."

He avoids all discussion of the relative quantity and qualities of overseas censorship when compared to his own unique creation.

Some foreign countries - even developed countries - ban access to websites when content violates their laws, such as neo-Nazi information blocked by Germany.

What irks many Chinese online users is simply being unable to access such apparently harmless fare as Facebook or YouTube.

Social networking tools are reportedly not just designed to entertain. Asked what would happen next after political upheavals rocked Tunisia and Egypt, Wael Ghonim, one of the individuals responsible for toppling the Mubarak regime replied, "Ask Facebook."

Fully aware of the political influence of the Internet, the US has stepped up its efforts to research online penetration tools and exert pressure on foreign governments such as China.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a speech on Tuesday that the US administration would spend $25 million this year helping online users get around such curbs as the Great Firewall of China to achieve "absolute freedom" of Internet information flow.

Asked to comment on Clinton's speech earlier this week, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu Thursday repeated previous statements that online users in China enjoy freedom of speech "in accordance with the law."

"China objects to any country's interference with China's internal affairs under the banner of Internet freedom."

Everlasting war

Fudan University professor Zhang Zhian notes that during the last decade, China's Internet freedom has developed a lot in terms of Web user awareness and freedom of speech.

"The change has been huge," he says. "China's Internet is still in the process of development.

"We'll listen to foreign countries' opinions on the development of China's Internet, but we should have our own timetable.

"The process takes time and we should be patient and rational."

Fang concedes his Great Firewall doesn't do a great job of distinguishing between good and evil information. If a website contains sensitive words, the firewall often simply blocks everything "due to the limitations of the technology," he says, expecting it would become more sophisticated in the future.

"The firewall monitors them and blocks them all," he says. "It's like when passengers aren't allowed to take water aboard an airplane because our security gates aren't good enough to differentiate between water and nitroglycerin."

Before he speaks, the GFW's father always pauses a few seconds and then when he talks, adopts a measured tone and a considered pace.

Calls for a more open information flow represent a soft power threat to China from foreign forces, Fang asserts.

"Some countries hope North Korea will open up its Internet," he says. "But if it really did so, other countries would get the upper hand."

When US President Barack Obama visited Shanghai, he talked about the importance of a more open Internet with Chinese students.

Some analysts perceive freedom of speech as expanding on the Chinese mainland in recent years via the Internet, while others argue that the Great Firewall is as belligerent as ever.

With more than 450 million Internet users, China now has the largest national online population in the world.

It's an everlasting war between the GFW and VPNs, Fang says.

"So far, the GFW is lagging behind and still needs improvement," he says.

The situation is better described as traffic control, Fang says.

"Drivers just obey the rules and so citizens should just play with what they have."

(cont...)

Liu Xiaobo

Charter 08, Human Rights in China

Charter 08

Translated from the Chinese by Perry Link

The document below, signed by over three hundred prominent Chinese citizens,
was conceived and written in conscious admiration of the founding of Charter
77 in Czechoslovakia, where, in January 1977, more than two hundred Czech
and Slovak intellectuals formed a loose, informal, and open association of
people... united by the will to strive individually and collectively for
respect for human and civil rights in our country and throughout the world.

The Chinese document calls not for ameliorative reform of the current
political system but for an end to some of its essential features, including
one-party rule, and their replacement with a system based on human rights
and democracy.

The prominent citizens who have signed the document are from both outside
and inside the government, and include not only well-known dissidents and
intellectuals, but also middle-level officials and rural leaders. They have
chosen December 10, the anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, as the day on which to express their political ideas and to outline
their vision of a constitutional, democratic China. They intend "Charter 08"
to serve as a blueprint for fundamental political change in China in the
years to come. The signers of the document will form an informal group,
open-ended in size but united by a determination to promote democratization
and protection of human rights in China and beyond.

On December 8 two prominent signers of the Charter, Zhang Zuhua and Liu
Xiaobo, were detained by the police. Zhang Zuhua has since been released; as
of December 9, Liu Xiabo remains in custody.

I. Foreword

A hundred years have passed since the writing of China's first constitution.
2008 also marks the sixtieth anniversary of the promulgation of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the thirtieth anniversary of the
appearance of Democracy Wall in Beijing, and the tenth of China's signing of
the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. We are approaching
the twentieth anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre of pro-democracy
student protesters. The Chinese people, who have endured human rights
disasters and uncountable struggles across these same years, now include
many who see clearly that freedom, equality, and human rights are universal
values of humankind and that democracy and constitutional government are the
fundamental framework for protecting these values.

By departing from these values, the Chinese government's approach to
"modernization" has proven disastrous. It has stripped people of their
rights, destroyed their dignity, and corrupted normal human intercourse. So
we ask: Where is China headed in the twenty-first century? Will it continue
with "modernization" under authoritarian rule, or will it embrace universal
human values, join the mainstream of civilized nations, and build a
democratic system? There can be no avoiding these questions.

The shock of the Western impact upon China in the nineteenth century laid
bare a decadent authoritarian system and marked the beginning of what is
often called "the greatest changes in thousands of years" for China. A
"self-strengthening movement" followed, but this aimed simply at
appropriating the technology to build gunboats and other Western material
objects. China's humiliating naval defeat at the hands of Japan in 1895 only
confirmed the obsolescence of China's system of government. The first
attempts at modern political change came with the ill-fated summer of
reforms in 1898, but these were cruelly crushed by ultraconservatives at
China's imperial court. With the revolution of 1911, which inaugurated
Asia's first republic, the authoritarian imperial system that had lasted for
centuries was finally supposed to have been laid to rest. But social
conflict inside our country and external pressures were to prevent it; China
fell into a patchwork of warlord fiefdoms and the new republic became a
fleeting dream.

The failure of both "self-strengthening" and political renovation caused
many of our forebears to reflect deeply on whether a "cultural illness" was
afflicting our country. This mood gave rise, during the May Fourth Movement
of the late 1910s, to the championing of "science and democracy." Yet that
effort, too, foundered as warlord chaos persisted and the Japanese invasion
[beginning in Manchuria in 1931] brought national crisis.

Victory over Japan in 1945 offered one more chance for China to move toward
modern government, but the Communist defeat of the Nationalists in the civil
war thrust the nation into the abyss of totalitarianism. The "new China"
that emerged in 1949 proclaimed that "the people are sovereign" but in fact
set up a system in which "the Party is all-powerful." The Communist Party of
China seized control of all organs of the state and all political, economic,
and social resources, and, using these, has produced a long trail of human
rights disasters, including, among many others, the Anti-Rightist Campaign
(1957), the Great Leap Forward (1958ˆ1960), the Cultural Revolution
(1966ˆ1969), the June Fourth (Tiananmen Square) Massacre (1989), and the
current repression of all unauthorized religions and the suppression of the
weiquan rights movement [a movement that aims to defend citizens' rights
promulgated in the Chinese Constitution and to fight for human rights
recognized by international conventions that the Chinese government has
signed]. During all this, the Chinese people have paid a gargantuan price.
Tens of millions have lost their lives, and several generations have seen
their freedom, their happiness, and their human dignity cruelly trampled.

During the last two decades of the twentieth century the government policy
of "Reform and Opening" gave the Chinese people relief from the pervasive
poverty and totalitarianism of the Mao Zedong era and brought substantial
increases in the wealth and living standards of many Chinese as well as a
partial restoration of economic freedom and economic rights. Civil society
began to grow, and popular calls for more rights and more political freedom
have grown apace. As the ruling elite itself moved toward private ownership
and the market economy, it began to shift from an outright rejection of
"rights" to a partial acknowledgment of them.

In 1998 the Chinese government signed two important international human
rights conventions; in 2004 it amended its constitution to include the
phrase "respect and protect human rights"; and this year, 2008, it has
promised to promote a "national human rights action plan." Unfortunately
most of this political progress has extended no further than the paper on
which it is written. The political reality, which is plain for anyone to
see, is that China has many laws but no rule of law; it has a constitution
but no constitutional government. The ruling elite continues to cling to its
authoritarian power and fights off any move toward political change.

The stultifying results are endemic official corruption, an undermining of
the rule of law, weak human rights, decay in public ethics, crony
capitalism, growing inequality between the wealthy and the poor, pillage of
the natural environment as well as of the human and historical environments,
and the exacerbation of a long list of social conflicts, especially, in
recent times, a sharpening animosity between officials and ordinary people.

As these conflicts and crises grow ever more intense, and as the ruling
elite continues with impunity to crush and to strip away the rights of
citizens to freedom, to property, and to the pursuit of happiness, we see
the powerless in our society˜the vulnerable groups, the people who have been
suppressed and monitored, who have suffered cruelty and even torture, and
who have had no adequate avenues for their protests, no courts to hear their
pleas˜becoming more militant and raising the possibility of a violent
conflict of disastrous proportions. The decline of the current system has
reached the point where change is no longer optional.

II. Our Fundamental Principles

This is a historic moment for China, and our future hangs in the balance. In
reviewing the political modernization process of the past hundred years or
more, we reiterate and endorse basic universal values as follows:

Freedom. Freedom is at the core of universal human values. Freedom of
speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom of association,
freedom in where to live, and the freedoms to strike, to demonstrate, and to
protest, among others, are the forms that freedom takes. Without freedom,
China will always remain far from civilized ideals.

Human rights. Human rights are not bestowed by a state. Every person is born
with inherent rights to dignity and freedom. The government exists for the
protection of the human rights of its citizens. The exercise of state power
must be authorized by the people. The succession of political disasters in
China's recent history is a direct consequence of the ruling regime's
disregard for human rights.

Equality. The integrity, dignity, and freedom of every person˜regardless of
social station, occupation, sex, economic condition, ethnicity, skin color,
religion, or political belief˜are the same as those of any other. Principles
of equality before the law and equality of social, economic, cultural,
civil, and political rights must be upheld.

Republicanism. Republicanism, which holds that power should be balanced
among different branches of government and competing interests should be
served, resembles the traditional Chinese political ideal of "fairness in
all under heaven." It allows different interest groups and social
assemblies, and people with a variety of cultures and beliefs, to exercise
democratic self-government and to deliberate in order to reach peaceful
resolution of public questions on a basis of equal access to government and
free and fair competition.

Democracy. The most fundamental principles of democracy are that the people
are sovereign and the people select their government. Democracy has these
characteristics: (1) Political power begins with the people and the
legitimacy of a regime derives from the people. (2) Political power is
exercised through choices that the people make. (3) The holders of major
official posts in government at all levels are determined through periodic
competitive elections. (4) While honoring the will of the majority, the
fundamental dignity, freedom, and human rights of minorities are protected.
In short, democracy is a modern means for achieving government truly "of the
people, by the people, and for the people."

Constitutional rule. Constitutional rule is rule through a legal system and
legal regulations to implement principles that are spelled out in a
constitution. It means protecting the freedom and the rights of citizens,
limiting and defining the scope of legitimate government power, and
providing the administrative apparatus necessary to serve these ends.

III. What We Advocate

Authoritarianism is in general decline throughout the world; in China, too,
the era of emperors and overlords is on the way out. The time is arriving
everywhere for citizens to be masters of states. For China the path that
leads out of our current predicament is to divest ourselves of the
authoritarian notion of reliance on an "enlightened overlord" or an "honest
official" and to turn instead toward a system of liberties, democracy, and
the rule of law, and toward fostering the consciousness of modern citizens
who see rights as fundamental and participation as a duty. Accordingly, and
in a spirit of this duty as responsible and constructive citizens, we offer
the following recommendations on national governance, citizens' rights, and
social development:

1. A New Constitution. We should recast our present constitution, rescinding
its provisions that contradict the principle that sovereignty resides with
the people and turning it into a document that genuinely guarantees human
rights, authorizes the exercise of public power, and serves as the legal
underpinning of China's democratization. The constitution must be the
highest law in the land, beyond violation by any individual, group, or
political party.

2. Separation of powers. We should construct a modern government in which
the separation of legislative, judicial, and executive power is guaranteed.
We need an Administrative Law that defines the scope of government
responsibility and prevents abuse of administrative power. Government should
be responsible to taxpayers. Division of power between provincial
governments and the central government should adhere to the principle that
central powers are only those specifically granted by the constitution and
all other powers belong to the local governments.

3. Legislative democracy. Members of legislative bodies at all levels should
be chosen by direct election, and legislative democracy should observe just
and impartial principles.

4. An Independent Judiciary. The rule of law must be above the interests of
any particular political party and judges must be independent. We need to
establish a constitutional supreme court and institute procedures for
constitutional review. As soon as possible, we should abolish all of the
Committees on Political and Legal Affairs that now allow Communist Party
officials at every level to decide politically-sensitive cases in advance
and out of court. We should strictly forbid the use of public offices for
private purposes.

5. Public Control of Public Servants. The military should be made answerable
to the national government, not to a political party, and should be made
more professional. Military personnel should swear allegiance to the
constitution and remain nonpartisan. Political party organizations shall be
prohibited in the military. All public officials including police should
serve as nonpartisans, and the current practice of favoring one political
party in the hiring of public servants must end.

6. Guarantee of Human Rights. There shall be strict guarantees of human
rights and respect for human dignity. There should be a Human Rights
Committee, responsible to the highest legislative body, that will prevent
the government from abusing public power in violation of human rights. A
democratic and constitutional China especially must guarantee the personal
freedom of citizens. No one shall suffer illegal arrest, detention,
arraignment, interrogation, or punishment. The system of "Reeducation
through Labor" must be abolished.

7. Election of Public Officials. There shall be a comprehensive system of
democratic elections based on "one person, one vote." The direct election of
administrative heads at the levels of county, city, province, and nation
should be systematically implemented. The rights to hold periodic free
elections and to participate in them as a citizen are inalienable.

8. RuralˆUrban Equality. The two-tier household registry system must be
abolished. This system favors urban residents and harms rural residents. We
should establish instead a system that gives every citizen the same
constitutional rights and the same freedom to choose where to live.

9. Freedom to Form Groups. The right of citizens to form groups must be
guaranteed. The current system for registering nongovernment groups, which
requires a group to be "approved," should be replaced by a system in which a
group simply registers itself. The formation of political parties should be
governed by the constitution and the laws, which means that we must abolish
the special privilege of one party to monopolize power and must guarantee
principles of free and fair competition among political parties.

10. Freedom to Assemble. The constitution provides that peaceful assembly,
demonstration, protest, and freedom of expression are fundamental rights of
a citizen. The ruling party and the government must not be permitted to
subject these to illegal interference or unconstitutional obstruction.

11. Freedom of Expression. We should make freedom of speech, freedom of the
press, and academic freedom universal, thereby guaranteeing that citizens
can be informed and can exercise their right of political supervision. These
freedoms should be upheld by a Press Law that abolishes political
restrictions on the press. The provision in the current Criminal Law that
refers to "the crime of incitement to subvert state power" must be
abolished. We should end the practice of viewing words as crimes.

12. Freedom of Religion. We must guarantee freedom of religion and belief
and institute a separation of religion and state. There must be no
governmental interference in peaceful religious activities. We should
abolish any laws, regulations, or local rules that limit or suppress the
religious freedom of citizens. We should abolish the current system that
requires religious groups (and their places of worship) to get official
approval in advance and substitute for it a system in which registry is
optional and, for those who choose to register, automatic.

13. Civic Education. In our schools we should abolish political curriculums
and examinations that are designed to indoctrinate students in state
ideology and to instill support for the rule of one party. We should replace
them with civic education that advances universal values and citizens'
rights, fosters civic consciousness, and promotes civic virtues that serve
society.

14. Protection of Private Property. We should establish and protect the
right to private property and promote an economic system of free and fair
markets. We should do away with government monopolies in commerce and
industry and guarantee the freedom to start new enterprises. We should
establish a Committee on State-Owned Property, reporting to the national
legislature, that will monitor the transfer of state-owned enterprises to
private ownership in a fair, competitive, and orderly manner. We should
institute a land reform that promotes private ownership of land, guarantees
the right to buy and sell land, and allows the true value of private
property to be adequately reflected in the market.

15. Financial and Tax Reform. We should establish a democratically regulated
and accountable system of public finance that ensures the protection of
taxpayer rights and that operates through legal procedures. We need a system
by which public revenues that belong to a certain level of
government˜central, provincial, county or local˜are controlled at that
level. We need major tax reform that will abolish any unfair taxes, simplify
the tax system, and spread the tax burden fairly. Government officials
should not be able to raise taxes, or institute new ones, without public
deliberation and the approval of a democratic assembly. We should reform the
ownership system in order to encourage competition among a wider variety of
market participants.

16. Social Security. We should establish a fair and adequate social security
system that covers all citizens and ensures basic access to education,
health care, retirement security, and employment.

17. Protection of the Environment. We need to protect the natural
environment and to promote development in a way that is sustainable and
responsible to our descendents and to the rest of humanity. This means
insisting that the state and its officials at all levels not only do what
they must do to achieve these goals, but also accept the supervision and
participation of non-governmental organizations.

18. A Federated Republic. A democratic China should seek to act as a
responsible major power contributing toward peace and development in the
Asian Pacific region by approaching others in a spirit of equality and
fairness. In Hong Kong and Macao, we should support the freedoms that
already exist. With respect to Taiwan, we should declare our commitment to
the principles of freedom and democracy and then, negotiating as equals, and
ready to compromise, seek a formula for peaceful unification. We should
approach disputes in the national-minority areas of China with an open mind,
seeking ways to find a workable framework within which all ethnic and
religious groups can flourish. We should aim ultimately at a federation of
democratic communities of China.

19. Truth in Reconciliation. We should restore the reputations of all
people, including their family members, who suffered political stigma in the
political campaigns of the past or who have been labeled as criminals
because of their thought, speech, or faith. The state should pay reparations
to these people. All political prisoners and prisoners of conscience must be
released. There should be a Truth Investigation Commission charged with
finding the facts about past injustices and atrocities, determining
responsibility for them, upholding justice, and, on these bases, seeking
social reconciliation.

China, as a major nation of the world, as one of five permanent members of
the United Nations Security Council, and as a member of the UN Council on
Human Rights, should be contributing to peace for humankind and progress
toward human rights. Unfortunately, we stand today as the only country among
the major nations that remains mired in authoritarian politics. Our
political system continues to produce human rights disasters and social
crises, thereby not only constricting China's own development but also
limiting the progress of all of human civilization. This must change, truly
it must. The democratization of Chinese politics can be put off no longer.

Accordingly, we dare to put civic spirit into practice by announcing Charter
08. We hope that our fellow citizens who feel a similar sense of crisis,
responsibility, and mission, whether they are inside the government or not,
and regardless of their social status, will set aside small differences to
embrace the broad goals of this citizens' movement. Together we can work for
major changes in Chinese society and for the rapid establishment of a free,
democratic, and constitutional country. We can bring to reality the goals
and ideals that our people have incessantly been seeking for more than a
hundred years, and can bring a brilliant new chapter to Chinese
civilization.


signed by:

Yu Haocheng(Beijing, Jurist)

Zhang Sizhi(Beijing, Lawyer)

Mao Yushi(Beijing, Economist)

(Du Guang(Beijing, Political Scientist)

Li Pu(Beijing, Ex Vice-director Xinhua News Agency)

Liu Shahe( Sichuan, Poet)

Sha Yexin(Shanghai, Dramatist)

Wu Maohua(Sichuan, Writer)

Zhang Xianyang(Beijing, Thinker)

Sun Wenguang( Shandong, Professor)

Bao Tong(Beijing, Citizen)

Ding Zilin(Beijing, Professor)

Zhang Xianling(Beijing, Engineer)

Xu Jue(Beijing, Researcher)

Jiang Peikun( Beijing, Professor)

Liu Xiaobo(Beijing, Writer)

Zhang Zuhua(Beijing, Scholar)

Gao Yu(Beijing, Journalist)

Dai Qing(Beijing, Writer)

Jiang Qisheng(Beijing, Scholar)

Ai Xiaoming(Guangzhou, Professor)

Liu Junning(Beijing, Political Scientist)

Zhang Xukun(Zhejiang, Professor)

Xu Youyu(Beijing, Philosopher)

He Weifang( Beijing, Jurist)

Mo Shaoping(Beijing, Lawyer)

Chen Ziming(Beijing, Scholar)

Zhang Boshu(Beijing, Political Scientist)

Cui Weiping(Beijing, Scholar)

He Guanghu(Beijing, Religion Scholar)

Hao Jian(Beijing, Scholar)

Shen Minhua( Zhejiang, Professor)

Li Datong(Beijing, Journalist)

Su Xianting(Beijing, Art Critic)

Zhang Ming(Beijing, Professor)

Yu Jie(Beijing, Writer)

Yu Shicun(Beijing, Writer)

Qin Geng(Hainan, Writer)

Zhou Duo(Beijing, Scholar)

Pu Zhiqiang(Beijing, Lawyer)

Zhao Dagong(Beijing, Writer)

Yao Lifa( Hubei, Election expert)

Feng Zhenghu(Shanghai, Scholar)

Zhou Qing(Beijing, Writer)

Yang Hengjun(Guangzhou, Writer)

Teng Biao( Beijing, Lecturer)

Jiang Danwen(Shanghai, Writer)

Wei SeTibet, Writer

Ma Bo( Beijing, Writer)

Cha Jianying(Beijing, Writer)

Hu Fayun(Hubei, Writer)

Jiao Guobiao(Beijing, Scholar)

Li Gongming(Guangdong, Professor)

Zhao Hui(Beijing, Critic)

Li Baiguang(Beijing, Lawyer)

Fu Guoyong(Zhejiang, Writer)

Ma Shaofang(Guangdong, Businessman)

Zhang Hong (Shanghai, Professor)

Xia Yeliang(Beijing, Economist)

Ran Yunfei(Sichuan, Scholar)

Liao Yiwu(Sichuan, Writer)

Wang Yi( Sichuan, Scholar)

Wang Xiaoyu(Shanghai, Scholar)

Su Yuanzhen(Zhejiang, Professor)

Qiang Jianzhong(Nanjing, Senior Journalist)

Ouyang Xiaorong(Yunnan, Poet)

Liu Di(Beijing, Self-empolyed)

Zan Aizong(Zhejiang, Journalist)

Zhou Hongling(Beijing, Social Activist)

( ) Feng Gang (Zhejiang, Professor)

Chen Lin( Guangzhou, Scholar)

Yin Xian(Gansu, Poet)

Zhou Ming(Zhejiang, Professor)

Ling Cangzhou(Beijing, Journalist)

Tie Liu(Beijing, Writer)

Chen Fengxiao (Shandong, Rightist )

Yao Bo( Beijing, Critic)

Zhang Jinjun(Guangdong, Professional manager)

Li Jianhong( Shanghai, Writer)

Zhang Shanguang(Hunan, Human rights Defender)

Li Deming(Hunan Media Worker)

Liu Jianan (Hunan, Teacher)

Wang Xiaoshan(Beijing, Media worker)

Fan Yafeng(Beijing, Scholar)

Zhou Mingchu( Zhejiang, Professor)

Liang Xiaoyan(Beijing, Enviromental Volunteer)

Xu Xiao(Beijing, Writer)

Chen Xi(Guizhou, Human rights Defender)

Zhao Cheng(Shanxi, Scholar)

Li Yuanlong(Guizhou, Freelance Writer)

Shen Youlian(Guizhou, Human rights Defender)

Jiang Suimin(Beijing, Engineer)

Lu Zhongming(Shanxi, Scholar)

Meng Huang(Beijing, Painter)

Lin Fuwu(Fujian, Human rights Defender)

Liao Shuangyuan(Guizhou, Human rights Defender)

Lu Xuesong(Jilin, Teacher)

Guo Yushan( Beijing, Scholar)

Chen Huanhui(Fujian, Human rights Defender)

Zhu Jiuhu(Beijing, Lawyer)

Jin GuangHong(Beijing, Lawyer)

Gao Chaoqun(Beijing, Editor)

Bai Feng(Jilin, Poet)

Zheng Xuguang(Beijing, Scholar)

Zeng Jinyan(Beijing, Rights Defender)

Wu Yuqin(Guizhou, Human rights Defender)

Du Yilong(Shanxi, Writer)

Li Hai(Beijing, Human Rights Defender)

Zhang Hui(Shanxi, Democratic Activist)

Jiangshan( Guangdong, Rights Defender)

Xu Guoqing(Guizhou, Democratic Activist)

Wu Yu(Guizhou, Democratic Activist)

Zhang Mingzhen(Guizhou, Democratic Activist)

Zeng Ning(Guizhou, Democratic Activist)

Quan Linzhi(Guizhou, Democratic Activist)

Ye Hang(Zhejiang, Professor)

Ma YunlongHenan, Scholar

Zhu Jianguo(Guangdong, Writer)

Li Tie( Guangdong, Democratic Activist)

Mo Jiangang(Guizhou, Freelance writer)

Zhang Yaojie(Beijing, Scholar)

Wu Baojian(Zhejiang, Lawyer)

Yang Guang(Guangxi, Scholar)

Yu Meisun( Beijing,Legal worker)

Xing Jian(Beijing, Legal Worker)

Wang Guangze(Beijing, Social Activist)

Chen Shaohua(Guangdong, Designer)

Liu Yiming(Hubei, Freelance Writer)

Wu Zuolai(Beijing, Researcher)

Gao Zhen(Shandong, Artist)

Gao Qiang(Shandong, Artist)

Tang Jingling(Guangzhou, Lawyer)

Li Xiaolong(Guangxi, Rights Defender)

Jing Chu(Guangxi, Freelance Writer)

Li Biao(Anhui, Businessman)

Guo Yan(Guangzhou, Lawyer)

Yang ShiyuanZhejiang, Rightist

Yang Kuanxing(Shandong, Writer)

Li Jinfang(Hebei, Democratic Activist)

Wang Yuwen(Guizhou, Poet)

Yang Zhongyi(Anhui, Worker)

Wu Xinyuan (Hebei, Farmer)

Du Heping(Guizhou, Democratic Activist)

Feng Ling(Hubei, Democratic Activist)

Zhang Xianzhong(Hubei, Entrepreneur)

( ) Cai Jingzhong(Guangdong, Farmer)

Wang DianbinHubei, Entrepreneur

( ) Cai Jincai(Guangdong, Farmer)

Gao Aiguo(Hubei, Entrepreneur)

( ) Chen Zhanyao(Guangdong,Farmer)

He Wenkai(Hubei, Entrepreneur)

Wu Dangying(Shanghai, Rights Defender)

( ) Zeng Qingbin(Guangdong,Worker)

Mao Haixiu(Shanghai, Rights Defender)

Zhuang DaoheHangzhou, Lawyer

Li Xiongbing (Beijing, Lawyer)

Li Renke(Guizhou, Democratic Activist)

Zuo Li (Hebei, Lawyer)

Dong Dez(Guizhou, Democratic Activist)

Tao Yuping(Guizhou, Democratic Activist)

ITWang Junxiu(Beijing, IT Professional)

Huang Xiaomin(Sichuan, Rights Defender)

Zheng Enchong(Shanghai,Lawyer)

Zhang Junling(Shanghai, Rights Defender)

Yang Hai( Shanxi, Scholar)

Ai Furong(Shanghai, Rights Defender)

Yang Huaren(Hubei, Legal Worker)

Wei Qin(Shanghai, Rights Defender)

Su Zuxiang(Hubei, Teacher)

Shen Yulian(Shanghai, Rights Defender)

Guan Hongshan(Hubei, Human Rights Defender)

Song Xianke(Guangdong, Businessman)

Wang Guoqiang(Hubei, Human Rights Defender)

Wang Debang(Beijing, Writer)

Chen Enjuan(Shanghai, Rights Defender)

Li Yong(Beijing, Media worker)

Chang Xiongfa(Shanghai, Rights Defender)

Wang Jinglong(Beijing, Scholar)

Xu Zhengqing(Shanghai, Rights Defender)

Gao Junsheng(Shanxi, Editor)

Zheng Beibei(Shanghai, Rights Defender)

Wang Dinghua(Hubei, Lawyer)

Tan Lanying(Shanghai, Rights Defender)

Fan Yanqiong(Fujian, Human Rights Defender)

Lin Hui(Zhejiang, Poet)

Wu Huaying(Fujian, Human Rights Defender)

Xue Zhenbiao(Zhejiang, Democratic Activist)

Dong Guoqing(Shanghai, Human Rights Defender)

Chen Yufeng(Hubei, Legal Worker)

Duan Ruofei(Shanghai, Human Rights Defender)

Wang Zhongling(Shanxi, Teacher)

Dong Chunhua(Shanghai, Human Rights Defender)

Chen Xiuqin(Shanghai, Human Rights Defender)

Gu Chuan(Beijing, Journalist)

Liu Zhengyou(Sichuan, Rights Defender)

Ma Xiao(Beijing, Writer)

Wan Yanhai(Beijing, Public Health Expert)

Shen Peilan Shanghai, Rights Defender

Ye Xiaogang(Zhejiang, retired Lecturer)

Zhang Jingsong(Anhui, Worker)

Zhang Jinfa(Zhejiang, Rightist)

Wang liqing(Shanghai, Rights Defender)

Zhao Changqing( Shanxi, Writer)

Jin Yuehua(Shanghai, Rights Defender)

Yu Zhangfa(Guangxi, Writer)

Chen Qiyong(Shanghai, Rights Defender)

Liu Xianbin(Sichuan, Democratic Activist)

Ouyang Yi (Sichuan, Human Rights Defender)

Deng Huanwu(Chongqing, Businessman)

He Weihua(Hunan, Democratic Activist)

ITLi Dongzhuo(Hunan, IT professional)

Tian Yongde(Inner Mongolia, Human Rights Defender)

Zhi Xiaomin(Shanxi, Scholar)

Li Changyu(Shandong, Teacher)

Zhu Jianguo(Guangdong, Freelance Writer)

Guo Weidong(Zhejiang, Clerk)

Chen Wei(Sichuan, Democratic Activist)

Wang Jinan(Hubei, Entrepreneur)

Cha Wenjun(Shanghai, Rights Defender)

Hou Shuming(Hubei, Entrepreneur)

Liu Hannan(Hubei, Human Rights Defender)

Shi Ruoping(Shandong, Professor)

Zhang renxiang(Hubei, Human Rights Defender)

Ye Du(Guangdong, Editor)

Xia Gang(Hubei, Human Rights Defender)

Zhao Guoliang(Hunan,Democratic Activist)

Li Zhiying(Beijing, Social Activist)

Zhang Chongfa(Guizhou, Democratic Activist)

Chen Yongmiao(Beijing, Lawyer)

Jiang Ying(Tianjin, Poet)

Tian Zuxiang(Guizhou, Democratic Activist)

Huang Zhijia(Hubei,Public Servant)

Guan Yebo(Hubei, Public Servant)

Wang Wangming(Hubei, Entrepreneur)

Gao Xinrui(Hubei, Entrepreneur)

Song Shuiquan(Hubei, Legal Worker)

Zhao Jingzhou(Heilongjiang, Human Rights Defender)

Wen Kejian(Zhejiang, Scholar)

Wei Wenying(Yunan, Teacher)

Chen Huijuan(Heilongjiang, Human Rights Defender)

Chen Yanxiong(Hubei, Teacher)

Duan Chunfang(Shanghai, Human Rights Defender)

Liu Zhengshan(Yunnan, Engineer)

Guan Min(Hubei, Lecturer)

Dai Yuanlong(Fujian, Entrepreneur)

Yu Yiwei(Guangdong, Freelance Writer)

) Han Zurong(Fujian, Entrepreneur)

Wang Dingliang( Hubei, Lawyer)

Chen Qinglin(Beijing, Human Rights Defender)

Qian Shishun(Guangdong, Entrepreneur)

Zeng Boyan(Sichuan, Writer)

Ma Yalian(Shanghai, Human Rights Defender)

Che Hongnian(Shandong, Freelance Writer)

Qin Zhigang(Shandong, Engineer)

Song Xiangfeng(Hubei, Teacher)

Deng Fuhua(Hubei, Writer)

Xu Kang(Hubei, Public servant)

Li Jianqiang( Shandong, Lawyer)

Li Renbing(Beijing, Lawyer)

Qiu Meili(Shanghai, Rights Defender)

) Lan Zhixue(Beijing, Lawyer)

Zhou Jinchang(Zhejiang, Rightist)

Huang YanmingGuizhou, Democratic Activist

Liu Wei(Beijing, Lawyer)

Yan Liehan(Hubei, Entrepreneur)

Chen Defu(Guizhou, Democratic Activist)

Guo Yongxin(Hubei, Doctor)

Guo Yongfeng(Guangdong,Rights Defender)

Yuan Xinting(Guangzhou, Editor)

Qi Huimin(Zhejiang, Democratic Activist)

Li Yu(Sichuan, Editor)

Xie Fulin(Hunan, Human Rights Defender)

Xu Guang(Zhejiang, Entrepreneur)

Ye Huo(Guangdong, Freelance Writer)

Zou Wei(Zhejiang, Rights Defender)

Xiao Linbin(Zhejiang, Engineer)

Gao Haibing(Zhejiang, Democratic Activist)

, Tian Qizhuang (Hebei, Writer)

Deng Taiqing(Shanxi, Democratic Activist)

, Pei Hongxin(Hebei, Teacher)

,Xu Min(Jilin, Legal worker)

,Li Xige(Henan, Rights Defender)

, Feng QiuSheng(Guangdong, Farmer)

,Hou Wenbao( Anhui, Rights Defender)

Tang Jitian(Beijing, Lawyer)

Liu Rongchao( Anhui, Farmer)

Li Tianxiang(Henan,worker)

Cui Yuzhen(Hebei, Lawyer)

Xu Maolian(Anhui, Farmer)

Zhai Linhua(Anhui, Teacher)

Tao Xiaoxia(Anhui, Farmer)

Zhang Wang(Fujian, Worker)

Huang Dachuan(Liaoning, Clerk)

Chen Xiaoyuan (Hainan, Clerk)

Zhang Jiankang (Shaanxi, Law worker)

Zhang Xingshui (Beijing, Lawyer)

Ma Gangquan (Beijing, Lawyer)

Wang Jinxiang (Hubei, Rights Defender)

Wang Jiaying (Hubei, Entrepreneur)

Yan Laiyun (Hubei, Entrepreneur)

Li Xiaoming (Hubei, Rights Defender)

Xiao Shuixiang (Hubei, Rights Defender)

Yan Yuxiang (Hubei, Rights Defender)

Liu Yi (Beijing, Painter)

Zhang Zhengxiang (Yunnan, Environmentalist)