China :: Exposé

'LITTLE EAR': A satellite dish out of the box and ready to be installed. "Little Ears" satellite dishes are used to receive the signal of independent TV station New Tang Dynasty TV inside China. (Minghui.org) Without fuss or ceremony representatives of New Tang Dynasty Asia Pacific and Taiwans Chunghwa Telecom (CHT) inked a new contract on June 27, assuring that NTD AP will continue broadcasting via satellite to Asia, including mainland China. Backers of the station say the new deal closes one chapter on the Chinese Communist Partys (CCP) ongoing attempts to cut off NTD APs influence on the Chinese people. The contract signing ended a controversy that began in early April when CHT abruptly informed NTD AP it would not renew the stations contract to broadcast on CHTs satellitea refusal that NTD AP characterized as illegal under Taiwan telecommunications law. NTD, the global network to which NTD AP belongs, is a media partner of The Epoch Times. Before CHT wou...

According to President Obama, he has no higher duty than to protect the American people. But thats not what the Constitution says. As President, I have often said that I have no greater responsibility than protecting the American people, wrote President Obama in the new National Strategy for Counterterrorism (pdf) that was released by the White House yesterday. A similar sentiment appears in the Introduction to the new Strategy , which states that the President bears no greater responsibility than ensuring the safety and security of the American people. This seems like a fateful misunderstanding. As chief executive and commander in chief of the armed forces, the President obviously has responsibility for national security. But to claim that he has no greater responsibility than protecting the American people is a paternalistic invention that is historically unfounded and potentially damaging to the political heritage of the nation. The presidential oath of office that is prescribed b...

Swarms of slogan-shouting petitioners in Beijing are challenging the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) ahead of the partys 90th anniversary, some of them yelling: Knock down the Chinese Communist Party! To clean up the streets for the 90th anniversary celebrations of the CCPs establishment, Beijing authorities have launched another round of arrests against the continuous stream of aggrieved citizens from all around the country who come to Beijing to making appeals to higher level regime offices. Yet, there were still more than ten thousand people who made appeals at the petitions offices of the State Council and the National Peoples Congress on June 27. Among the petitioners were about 100 retired military officers and soldiers who fought in the Self Defense War against Vietnam in 1979. They formed a squadron and shouted slogans, including, Knock down the Chinese Communist Party! A person at the scene told Sound of Hope Radio (SOH) on the telephone: There were so many people there that it ...

Outspoken Chinese artist Ai Weiwei speaks to reporters outside his studio in Beijing on June 23, 2011. (Peter Parks/AFP/Getty Images) On April 3, Chinese dissident and artist Ai Weiwei was arrested in Beijing airport as he prepared to board a plane for a flight to Hong Kong. He was later charged with tax evasiona charge his supporters believe was merely a pretext for silencing him. While Ai Weiwei was held, no Chinese official deigned to explain to his family where he was being held, much less provided the opportunity to visit him. This uncertainty added to the ordeal Ai Weiweis 77-year old mother Gao Ying faced. In her interview with NTD, she thanks the media around the world for their support while her son was detained. She says the 81 days that Ai was detained has been the most painful period of her life, but the media attention from around the world gave her strength and made her feel she was not alone. The interview follows: Reporter: Please talk about how you will con...

EMPTY SEAT: Jailed Chinese dissident Hu Jia's seat stands empty on Dec. 17, 2008, during the awards ceremony for the 2008 Sakharov Prize in the European Parliament. Hu was released from prison on Sunday after 3.5 years, but is not allowed to talk to media and supporters expect he will be closely monitored. (Dominique Faget/AFP/Getty Images) One of Chinas most high-profile dissidents, Hu Jia, was released from jail early Sunday morning after he completed a three-and-a-half-year sentence on subversion charges, his wife said. His wife, Zeng Jinyan, said that Hu had returned to his Beijing home, but was not ready to speak in public. "On a sleepless night, Hu Jia arrived at home at 2:30 a.m.safe and very happy," Zeng, also an activist, wrote on her Twitter account. "[He] needs to rest for some time." The 37-year-old AIDS, human rights, and environmental activist Hu was convicted in 2008 for "inciting subversion of state power" for criticizing human righ...

A substantial new report from the Congressional Research Service (CRS) considers the potential threat posed by radiological dispersal devices or dirty bombs. At the direction of Congress, the CRS does not make its publications directly available to the public. The dirty bomb report, as well as a shorter, abridged version of the report, and the other new reports listed below were obtained by Secrecy News (all pdf). Dirty Bombs: Technical Background, Attack Prevention and Response, Issues for Congress, June 24, 2011 Dirty Bombs: Background in Brief, June 24, 2011 Amendments to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Extended Until June 1, 2015, June 16, 2011 Gun Control Legislation, June 9, 2011 State Taxation of Internet Transactions, June 7, 2011 Kazakhstan: Recent Developments and U.S. Interests, June 1, 2011 U.S. Foreign Aid to the Palestinians, May 31, 2011 New Zealand: Background and Bilateral Relations with the United States, May 27, 2011

Ai Weiwei Released (NTD Television) Chinese artist Ai Weiwei was released from prison on Wednesday after mounting international condemnation for his detention. The outspoken critic of the Chinese communist regime who is famous for helping design Beijings Bird Nest stadium for the 2008 Olympics returned home late on Wednesday, but is subject as conditions of his release to travel restrictions and a media gag order. Im sorry I cant [talk], I am on probation, please understand, Ai said in English outside his suburban Beijing home Wednesday night, according to NTD Television. Ai had been detained without charge since April 3 amid a crackdown on dissidents and critics of Chinas authoritarian rule during a recent spate of protests inspired by the Arab Spring uprisings. Police and officials, however, publicly accused the artist-activist of tax evasion, considered by most human rights experts and China watchers to be trumped-up charges. State-run Xinhua News Agency reported that Ai ...

Chongqing, a large city in south-western China most well-known for the antics of its neo-Maoist boss Bo Xilai, will have free access to the Internet soonthough not everyone will be enjoying it. A June 17 article in Southern Weekend reports the setting up of a special district free of Chinas Great Firewall; but it only serves international corporations and will be strictly isolated from the rest of the country. The article, The Cloud District of Chongqing: A Place without the Great Firewall, drew a lot of eyeballs from Chinas Internet community. The Cloud District, short for International Offshore Cloud Computing Special Management District, is being built in the Chongqing Two Rivers Area and will take up 10 square kilometers (about 2,471 acres), according to the report. Cloud computing is an emerging computing technology in the IT industry and has opened the doors for huge business opportunities. Because of the regimes tight control over Internet access, Chinas market share ...

() Editor's note: The Epoch Times here publishes direct translations of statements made by Chinese people in renouncing the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its subordinate organizations. Statements such as these are submitted to a website affiliate of the Chinese version of The Epoch Times, Dajiyuan. The movement to renounce, withdraw from, or quit the CCP , called tuidang in Chinese, began in late 2004, soon after The Epoch Times published the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, an editorial series that explores the nature and history of the CCP. The statements offer a rare and candid glimpse of history in the making: the Chinese people turning their backs on the Communist Party, choosing conscience over pragmatism, and peacefully ushering in a future China free of Party rule. Chinese Quit the CCP and Its Affiliated Organizations During the Cultural Revolution, my father was beaten to death by the Red Guards. This horrific event implanted an indescribable fear of the Chin...

A picture dated March 28, 2005 shows blind activist Chen Guangcheng (R) with his wife and child Chen Kerui outside the home in Dondshigu village, northeast China's Shandong province. (STR/AFP/Getty Images) A letter sent by the wife of blind human rights lawyer Chen Guangcheng to a friend describes prolonged beatings she and Chen endured and harassment the entire family has suffered at the hands of local officials. Chen gained worldwide prominence by working to expose and end the forced abortions and sterilizations caused by the Chinese regimes one-child policy. That work was rewarded by the authorities with 51 months in prison, where Chen is said to have suffered repeated torture. He was released on Sept. 9, 2010 but then placed under house arrest. The letter describes how on Feb. 18 a large gang under the command of a local Chinese Communist Party (CCP) official burst into Chens home. He and his wife, Yuan Weijing, were beaten and tortured by groups of men for two hours. ...

The Congressional Research Service is prohibited by congressional secrecy policy from making its reports directly available to the public. These new CRS reports on various topics of current interest were obtained by Secrecy News (all pdf). Severe Thunderstorms and Tornadoes in the United States, May 26, 2011. Defense: FY2012 Budget Request, Authorization and Appropriations, June 15, 2011. FBI Directorship: History and Congressional Action, June 7, 2011. Presidential Authority to Impose Requirements on Federal Contractors, June 14, 2011. Funding Emergency Communications: Technology and Policy Considerations, June 14, 2011. The Global Climate Change Initiative (GCCI): Budget Authority and Request, FY2008-FY2012, June 1, 2011. Legislative History Research: A Basic Guide, June 15, 2011. Mongolia: Issues for Congress, June 14, 2011. Application of Religious Law in U.S. Courts: Selected Legal Issues, May 18, 2011.

The government yesterday filed a formal response (pdf) in federal court in opposition to the public use of WikiLeaks documents by a habeas attorney who represents a client in U.S. military detention at Guantanamo Bay. Those documents are or may be classified, the government insisted, and must continue to be treated as such. In an April 27 motion (pdf), attorney David Remes had asked the Court to authorize full and unfettered access to WikiLeaks documents pertaining to his client, and to affirm that he may publicly view, download, print, copy, disseminate, and discuss the documents and their contents, without fear of any sanctions. Any member of the general public can view these files, download them, print them, circulate them, and comment on them, Mr. Remes wrote . Undersigned counsel, however, fears that he will face potential sanctions, legal or otherwise, if he does exactly the same things without express government permission. In its response yesterday, the government said that ...

An independent TV station broadcasting uncensored news into Asia, including mainland China, via a Taiwan-controlled satellite has since early April faced the prospect of going off the air on Aug. 9. A bipartisan coalition of Taiwan legislators has urged keeping the station on the air and a U.S. congressman has sketched the outlines of a possible deal. So far their efforts have not borne fruit. Chunghwa Telecom (CHT) formally notified New Tang Dynasty Asia Pacific (NTD AP) on April 12 that it would not renew NTD APs satellite contract, citing insufficient bandwidth as the reason for no longer carrying the station. CHT says its circumstances have changed due to the scheduled deployment of a new satellite, ST-2, which takes the place of its ST-1 satellite from which NTD AP currently broadcasts. CHT has claimed that the ST-2 has less bandwidth available than the ST-1 and so it is forced to deny service to some current customers. NTD AP has suggested that the problem is not a...

The information control agencies of Chinas Communist Party have joined forces to crack down on Internet civil rights activities since mid-April, according to the state mouthpiece Xinhua. Fifty-five websites have been closed down. Over 20 of those targets were dedicated to defending civil rights, including Peoples Voice, Complaints and Reports 315, and Consumer Complaints 315, as reported by VOA on June 13. Liu Feiyue, director of Civil Rights and Livelihood watch of Peoples Life in China (http://www.zgmsgc.net/), told VOA, These should be websites established by human rights defenders or citizen journalists. They mainly defend human rights or report events happening to common people that the authorities are unwilling to report on. The authorities think they expose the dark side or negative news. These websites were established mainly to defend human rights, and are not official. The authorities may use this opportunity to shut them down. Liu said that in 2006 after only one month his w...

The legitimacy of official secrecy policy that is taken for granted within official circles is increasingly open to question within the press and among many members of the public. Government officials must accept the enduring reality of a media culture that is prepared to publish official secrets and considers such disclosure a patriotic contribution to democratic discourse, said the Congressional Research Service in passing in a new report. See Intelligence Information: Need-to-Know vs. Need-to-Share (pdf), June 6, 2011. This is not quite precise, since no U.S. news organization publishes official secrets just because they are secret. And no one seriously views the publication of a classified technical manual, for example, as a contribution to democratic discourse. The secrets must also be newsworthy, and even then most news outlets will exercise discretion and will give consideration to national security claims. But it is certainly true that reputable news organizations of liberal, ...

Over 5,000 police clashed with 10,000 protesters in Zengcheng City, Guangzhou Province on June 11 and 12. A national highway was blocked and dozens of police cars smashed and burnt. As military support was called in, local residents were able to successfully publish photos and updates online. The protest is in reaction to a June 10 incident at Xintang Township, Zengcheng City in which a pregnant street vendor from Sichuan was violently hit in the stomach by the public order response team at roughly 9 pm. The crowd who witnessed the violence was so outraged that they beat the team members. One post on the Chinese version of Twitter, Weibo, claimed: I have been there from the beginning to the end, and said that more than 5,000 police were deployed along with troops, tanks and tear gas. Numerous people have been wounded, the eyewitness said, one of whom happened to be his cousin. While walking out of the post office, where he had wired money home, the relative was mistak...

Li Zhuang, a Chinese lawyer imprisoned for 18 months after bumping heads with Communist Party high-flyer Bo Xilai, finished his sentence on Saturday and flew home to Beijing. His son, Li Yatong, left an account online and posted photos which were circulated on Sina Weibo and Chinese websites. Li had been convicted of fabricating evidence and interfering with witness testimony in early 2010 after attempting to defend alleged mafia boss Gong Gangmo, a nightclub owner. Gong was being pursued by the city prosecutor as part of Bo Xilais heavily publicized anti-mob campaign in Chongqing, a megapolis where Bo is Party chief. Bos dragnet swept up taxi cab drivers who had organized a protest and defense lawyers, causing critics to say his hitting the black campaign was more about promoting Bo than stamping out organized crime. Lis defense of Gong depended on Gongs claim that he had been tortured into confessing. That claim then became the basis for charging Li, who was accused of having told Go...

To communicate with his brother, Li Jinlong shows a placard from a hallway window on the third floor of the Chaoyang District Mental Hospital. (Photo provided by Li Jinping) After a former police officer attempted to honor the Chinese Communist Party head who opposed using violence against the students in Tiananmen Square in 1989, he disappeared. His brother has discovered the former officer was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital, where he has suffered abuse. Mr. Li Jinping was a police officer assigned to Zhao Ziyang, after the former CCP general secretary was placed under house arrest following the Tiananmen Square massacre. Zhao had been stripped of his offices and detained because of his attitude toward the student democratic movement. Zhao has often been treated as a martyr by democratic dissidents, while CCP officials have sought to repress all attempts to remember him. Li had applied for a parade permit on Aug. 23, 2010, one of a series of actions he had t...

In a whirlwind conclusion to the prosecution of former National Security Agency official Thomas A. Drake , Mr. Drake agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge of exceeding authorized use of a computer. Prosecutors were unable to sustain any of the felony counts against Mr. Drake that were contained in last years ten-count indictment , including charges of unauthorized retention of classified material under the Espionage Act of 1917. A copy of the June 9, 2011 plea agreement is here . Mr. Drake had been suspected of unauthorized disclosures of classified information to the press, though he was not specifically charged with that offense, and he denied committing it. Much of the case was conducted behind closed doors and off the public record, so many intriguing aspects of its ultimate resolution remain obscure for the time being. But it seems clear that the Obama Administration misjudged the merits of its case against Drake, pursuing minor infractions with disproportionate zeal. M...

Lu Juhua, a disabled woman who was put behind bars in China, after local police accused her of not paying for a bus ticket that cost one Yuan (US 15) (The Epoch Times Photos Database) A disabled woman who served one year in a forced labor camp for riding a Beijing city bus for free is now suing to have the sentence against her withdrawn. Her daughter says she was punished for appealing in Beijing against unjust actions by her local authorities. Lu Juhua is a disabled resident of Changzhou City, Jiangsu Province. According to her daughter, she had traveled in June 2009 to Beijing to appeal against the forced demolition of her home, which was worth 4 million yuan (US$618,000), and while there complained of other unjust acts by the local authorities. In April 2010 the Changzhou police went to Beijing and interviewed a local bus driver, asking him to confirm that Lu had ridden the bus without purchasing a ticket. A bus ticket costs one yuan (US 15 cents). Upon the return of the...

The National Security Agency announced yesterday that it has declassified a report that is over two hundred years old. The newly declassified report, entitled Cryptology: Instruction Book on the Art of Secret Writing, dates from 1809. It is part of a collection of 50,000 pages of historic records that have just been declassified by NSA and transferred to the National Archives. The NSA said the new release demonstrated its commitment to meeting the requirements of President Obamas January 2009 Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government. The bulk of the newly released documents are from World War II and the early post-War era. (NSA itself was established in 1952.) A list of titles released to the National Archives is here (pdf). Last April, the Central Intelligence Agency declassified several documents on the use of invisible ink that dated from the World War I era. But those were not even a century old. Meanwhile, in more recent developments, the case of former NSA official Tho...

A wave of Internet-based self-nominations in local Chinese elections has made the Communist Party nervous. Editorials in the official press have been issued to throw cold water on aspirants, and when that hasnt worked the authorities have resorted to old-fashioned arrests. The candidates are seeking low-level and relatively unimportant positions in the Chinese regimes obscure system of representation, called the Peoples Congress, which exist at district, township, and county levels. The system is connected to the National Peoples Congress, the highly visible rubber-stamp legislature that convenes in the capital every year. Candidates using Sina Weibo, a Chinese version of Twitter, are attempting to gain audiences and be elected as representatives in these local Peoples Congresses. The phenomenon has drawn the attention of the Chinese media, scholars and online public opinionas well as the Communist Party. Independent candidates need to gain support from at least 10 vo...

A large-scale conflict happened after a migrant worker had four tendons severed for asking for unpaid wages. (Photos posted to BBS) Migrant workers protested against the mutilation of one of their own in Chaozhou City, Guangdong Province, Monday night. The migrants, mostly from Sichuan, were outraged that a 19 year-old who asked his boss for back wages had the tendons to his four limbs cut. A government building and police station were surrounded and intense conflicts with the riot police occurred. More than 30 cars were smashed and burned. Online news sites reported that the victim, Xiong Hanjiang (from Zhongjiang County, Sichuan Province) and his parents had a dispute with the boss of Huayi Ceramics in Guxiang Town, surnamed Su, 36 years old, of Chaozhou City when they asked for their unpaid wages. Subsequently, two men named Hao and Rong, both 22 years old, cut Xiongs arms and legs with two broadswords. The severe injuries to the tendons of the worker's hands and feet. (Photos p...

The prosecution of former National Security Agency official Thomas A. Drake under the Espionage Act smacks of overkill, said the Washington Post in an editorial today ( A case that could be overkill against a whistleblower, June 6). The Post editorial tends to ratify a growing consensus that the prosecution of Drake on charges of unauthorized retention of classified information is a mistake, and that the Obama Administration has mishandled the case. That view was crystallized by a widely-read New Yorker article written by Jane Mayer ( The Secret Sharer, May 23), and reinforced by a 60 Minutes profile (May 22), as well as a Ridenhour whistleblower award. There is no evidence that Mr. Drake intended to cause harm to the United States or that he actually did so, even inadvertently. The prosecutors themselves do not claim that any classified information that might have been in Mr. Drakes possession appeared in the press as a result of his actions. Yet he faces the possibility of multip...

Pro-democracy groups hope to draw 150,000 people to the annual candlelight vigil in Hong Kong's Victoria Park, the only commemoration on Chinese soil, to remember the 22nd anniversary of the bloody 1989 Tiananmen Massacre crackdown. (Mike Clarke/Getty Images) On the 22nd anniversary of the June 4 Tiananmen Massacre, supporters of Chinese democracy held memorial activities around the world, demanding that China provide full accounting and free any citizens still serving sentences. Governments also called on the Chinese regime to release all those detained, disappeared, or placed under house arrest in recent months amid Beijings fears of a jasmine revolution. On June 4, 1989, the world watched on television as the Chinese communist regime sent troops, tanks, and guns to put out the student democracy movement in Tiananmen Square. Though twenty-two years have passed, the Chinese regime still refuses to acknowledge the massacre and redress the victims openly. At least five...