China Development Brief - Law and Rights

Move to prevent green protest shows uneven distribution of free speech

Fri, 06 Jul 2007 04:23:35 +0100

Chinese Internet authorities have ordered websites—including a Chinese language environmental NGO site operated by China Development Brief (www.greengo.cn)—to remove an open letter from twelve organisations calling for a fair trial for jailed environmental activist, Wu Lihong (吴立红).

Anomalously, the move came after China’s official media had already reported on the contents of the letter, which argued that “in order to support public confidence in the rule of law and build a harmonious society” Wu’s trial should be open to the public and based on lawfully obtained evidence.

Brick kiln ‘slavery’ exposé follows Olympic child labour report

Mon, 18 Jun 2007 03:10:34 +0100

Senior Chinese officials vowed to act on an international NGO and trade union report alleging abusive practices in four Pearl Delta factories contracted to produce goods for the 2008 Olympics, even as the report was overshadowed by shocking revelations of forced child labour in brick kilns in the provinces of Henan and Shanxi.

Open government: A step forward, but with sideways shuffles too

Tue, 05 Jun 2007 03:16:10 +0100

China is introducing new transparency rules for government—in part, it seems, to curb corruption. But, reports Chang Tianle (常天乐), some progressive localities are ahead of the central government on this issue, and the national rules remain ambiguous as to how much the public has a right to know.

China’s first national regulations on public disclosure of government information have been cautiously welcomed by scholars and NGOs, but most say that China still has a long way to go to achieve transparent government.

The Regulations on Government Disclosure of Information (政府信息公开条例) were approved by the State Council on January 17, 2007 and take effect on May 1, 2008. Article 1 states that they aim to “ensure that citizens, legal persons and other organisations (公民、法人和其他组织) can obtain government information by lawful means, and increase government transparency.”

NGO report damns campus health, disability discrimination

Wed, 23 May 2007 06:41:28 +0100

Discrimination against students with medical conditions is rife in Chinese colleges and universities despite being formally prohibited by China’s Constitution and various related laws, according to a report published by three NGOs.

Child trafficking: Protecting children in a society on the move

Fri, 13 Apr 2007 02:23:25 +0100

Rather than treating child trafficking as an isolated issue, the government of China should respond by creating comprehensive and integrated child protection mechanisms, Save the Children’s Kate Wedgwood, He Ye (何叶) and Sun Tiezheng (孙铁铮) argue in the following excerpts from a recent presentation to the Foreign Correspondents Club in Beijing.

New rules make life tougher for petitioners, survey finds

Wed, 18 Apr 2007 01:34:18 +0100

Citizen “petitioners” seeking justice in Beijing have come under increased pressure and abuse from authorities in their areas of origin following the introduction of new regulations on petitioning, according to a recent survey by Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) researchers.

Editorial: Show some respect, Amnesty

Tue, 05 Jun 2007 02:53:42 +0100

Rural migrants to Chinese cities are having a very tough time, according to a report issued in March by Amnesty International. True enough. But hardly news to anyone at all familiar with the subject. Any well-informed broadsheet newspaper reader in the West knows this already, and so of course do all Chinese people who have been out of their village. So what was the point?

Belgian grant spreads legal support services for migrant workers

Fri, 16 Mar 2007 04:39:43 +0000

A non-government Legal Aid Station for Migrant Workers (农民工法律援助工作站) in Beijing will help 15 provinces establish similar “stations” in a USD 500,000 programme funded by the government of Belgium and brokered by UNDP and its Chinese government counterpart agencies, it was announced last week.

First person: "Uncle, I want to go home”

Fri, 12 Jan 2007 10:26:15 +0000

Musapir, a native of Kelamayi (克拉马依) in Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, is a police cadet in the Peoples’ Public Security University of China. In July 2006 he posted the following story on a website devoted to Uighur affairs.

During this summer vacation the school arranged for us to go to Shenzhen on a two month internship. The people and events in this story are all real, but for their security and for other reasons some names have been changed.

The danwei where I did my internship was a local police station (派出所) in Shenzhen city’s Bao’an (宝安) district. Around midday the day before yesterday we received a call saying some of our people on the beat (巡防人员) had arrested a thief in front of a commercial plaza. After taking the call, a police officer and I went together to the scene and found that the thief was a boy from Xinjiang, the same place I come from. He had been stealing a cellphone from someone’s bag, but the victim noticed.

Hepatitis B stigma provokes outcry in Xinjiang

Tue, 07 Nov 2006 06:25:43 +0000

Despite central directives to discourage discrimination against the tens of millions of people infected with Hepatitis B, old habits die hard in Xinjiang where parents are taking legal action against education authorities for barring their children from a coveted educational opportunity, and where a local NGO that broke the news to media has met with a stern response. Chang Tianle (常天乐) reports.

A quiet but dogged advocacy

Tue, 07 Nov 2006 16:20:22 +0000

Driven barking mad by information requests from foreign correspondents and researchers keen to investigate environmental or labour rights activism as a manifestation of China’s civil society, China Development Brief thought there must be a better litmus of state-society relations, grounded in the hopes and deeds of ordinary people. Like, say, dog owners. Chang Tianle (常天乐) sniffs out the story.

NGO activists set sights at Peoples Congresses

Tue, 17 Oct 2006 02:54:37 +0100

NGOs in China have long strived to improve their relationship with government and influence policy-making in various ways, writes Chang Tianle (常天乐) . Now, as elections for local People’s Congresses are being held, a few NGO leaders have seen this as an opportunity to mainstream themselves.

First Person: "I underestimated the difficulty of claiming rights"

Fri, 09 Jun 2006 08:07:47 +0100

Village doctor Zhang Changjian (张长建) has just had his clinic closed by local authorities. His offence? A decade of activism, trying to draw government and media attention to a wave of illness that, he claims, is caused by a local chemical plant. Tina Qian (钱霄峰) listened to his story.

Pioneering women’s legal aid group receives cash birthday gift

Wed, 17 May 2006 06:18:17 +0100

The Centre for Women’s Law and Legal Services at Beijing University, which this week marked ten years of pioneering work to protect and strengthen women’s rights, received a CNY 130,000 birthday gift from the China Legal Aid Foundation established by the Ministry of Justice in 1997.

Haemophiliacs thwarted in HIV compensation claim

Tue, 25 Apr 2006 05:09:55 +0100

Shanghai police broke up a small press conference organised on April 20 by 37 haemophiliacs and their family members who contracted the HIV or Hepatitis C viruses via unsafe blood products.