The LongBow Papers

Liberal-oriented columns, commentary and archived articles on national and international news, politics, and the communication arts--with emphasis on China--by Joseph Bosco, author, journalist, director and actor; Professor of Drama and Communications at Beijing Foreign Studies University.

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Shame on Shenzhen, or Beijing?

5:00 PM

Suspected prostitutes and a few men accused of being pimps were paraded through the streets of Shenzhen two weeks ago as part of a crackdown. Associated Press Photograph

Very few words are needed from me to point you to an article in The New York Times about the resurrection of a shameful old remedy to render a face-saving slap at the world's oldest profession in Shenzhen, China, and what many of today's Chinese citizens have to say about it.

As Vice Dragnet Recalls Bad Old Days, Chinese Cry Out

By HOWARD W. FRENCH
Published: December 13, 2006

SHANGHAI, Dec. 12 -- For people who saw the event on television earlier this month, the scene was like a chilling blast from a past that is 30 years distant: social outcasts and supposed criminals -- in this case 100 or so prostitutes and a few pimps -- paraded in front of a jeering crowd, their names revealed, and then driven away to jail without trial.

The act of public shaming was intended as the first step in a two-month campaign by the authorities in the southern city of Shenzhen to crack down on prostitution.

But the event has prompted an angry nationwide backlash, with many people making common cause with the prostitutes over the violation of their human rights and expressing outrage in one online forum after another.

So-called rectification campaigns, or struggle sessions, like these were everyday occurrences during the Cultural Revolution, which officially ended in 1976.

Please continue reading at The New York Times:

5:00 PM / Editor / permalink 0 comments

Saturday, December 02, 2006

China Will Never Be "Great" Until Its Journalists Are Free To Tell the Truth

6:30 PM

When will they ever learn? All regular readers of these pages know something of the utterly base, and baseless, injustice done by the Central Government of China to one of its best and most consistently courageous truth-tellers, the journalist Zhoa Yan. He is a story-teller with a long history of telling the truth about the plight of the powerless people at the heart of China--the countryside farmer and the migrant laborer.

Until such native wordsmiths have the freedom to tell the human stories of the still very much developing China, its development will take all the longer, and that's a goddamn shame, because it doesn't need to be that way. China is strong enough now to handle every truth and keep going in its unique path of development with "Chinese characteristics"; and be far the stronger and greater for it, and it does not necessitate a change in its one-party system. Truth hurts only a relative few and only for a little while; yet its absence can torment so many until the end of time.

Today, we cry with finality at the ruling of the High Court of Appeals in Beijing on Friday, December 1, 2006. Jim Yardley reports the story in The New York Times, which is excerpted and linked to below.

Chinese Court Rejects Appeal by Researcher for The Times

By JIM YARDLEY
Published: December 1, 2006

BEIJING, Friday, Dec. 1 -- A Beijing appeals court on Friday upheld a fraud conviction against a Chinese researcher for The New York Times in a ruling that means he will probably remain in prison until his three-year sentence ends next September.

The researcher, Zhao Yan, sought to overturn an August fraud conviction that stemmed from a period in 2001 when he worked as a reporter for a Chinese magazine. He has maintained his innocence, and his legal team has complained that the appeals court prohibited them from mounting a vigorous case.

Witnesses inside the High Court of Beijing said the judge called the case shortly after 9 a.m. on Friday.

"Do you have anything to say?" the judge asked Mr. Zhao.

"What kind of judge are you?" Mr. Zhao answered, according to the witnesses. "Is this how you use the power the country gave you?"

Outside the courtroom, Guan Anping, a lawyer for Mr. Zhao, criticized the court. "Zhao Yan wasn't given the opportunity to testify in court," Mr. Guan said. "He was not allowed to call witnesses or present certain evidence. They sustained the verdict without having another trial. The verdict was based only on the written materials."