Two Women Sentenced to Re-education (through labor) in China: Both in their 70s; applied to protest

[DeepModem Mom]

Source: New York Times

....(Wu Dianyuan and Wang Xiuying), both in their late 70s, have never spoken out against China’s authoritarian government. Both walk with the help of a cane, and Ms. Wang is blind in one eye. Their grievance, receiving insufficient compensation when their homes were seized for redevelopment, is perhaps the most common complaint among Chinese displaced during the country’s long streak of fast economic growth.

But the Beijing police still sentenced the two women to an extrajudicial term of “re-education through labor” this week for applying to hold a legal protest in a designated area in Beijing, where officials promised that Chinese could hold demonstrations during the Olympic Games.

They became the most recent examples of people punished for submitting applications to protest. A few would-be demonstrators have simply disappeared, at least for the duration of the Games, squelching already diminished hopes that the influx of foreigners and the prestige of holding the Games would push China’s leaders to relax their tight grip on political expression....

***

In theory, the Communist Party allows citizens to lobby the central government on matters of local corruption, the illegal seizure of land and extralegal detentions. In reality, those who arrive at Beijing’s petition office are often met at the door by plainclothes officers who stop them from filing their complaints and then bundle them back to their hometowns. Intimidation, beatings and administrative detentions are often enough to prevent them from trying again....


(Ng Han Guan/AP)
Seventy-nine-year-old Wu Dianyuan, right, and her neighbor Wang Xiuying, 77, waited to apply for a protest permit outside a public security bureau in Beijing on Monday. They were later sentenced to a year of "re-education through labor."

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/21/sports/olympics/21protest.html?em

[drm604]

1. This is terrible!

:cry:

[DeepModem Mom]

2. It's on the NYT most-emailed list. I think it must have touched lots of readers! nt

[drm604]

4. All I can think of is my 78 year old mother

with her cane, heart problems, and two artificial joints.

Hopefully this publicity, especially during the Olympics, will cause the Chinese government to rethink their treatment of these two women.

Of course, that won't help the thousands of others that none of us ever heard of.

[nam78_two]

3. K&R.nt

[specterderrida]

5. Now is the time for the US to speak up--IF we have any principles at all. !!

[Virginia Dare]

7. We don't...n/t

[HuffleClaw]

6. funny how as the more gold medals the US DOESN'T win the more anti-china stories appear in the media

pretty coincidental eh?

[Virginia Dare]

8. So you think throwing little old ladies in re-education camps..

should be ignored? We don't expose enough of these things IMO. If the Olympics brings more of these stories to light, than so much the better.

[HuffleClaw]

12. i'm pointing out the hypocrisy

of the media making such stories worthy of our attention only now.

[malaise]

10. While I'm fully aware of the anti-China sentiments in the US

media, the treatment of these two old ladies is disgraceful.

[malaise]

9. This is disgraceful

This entire planet is heading for fascism.

[Boojatta]

11. Was Stalin a fascist or are you suggesting that Stalin would never

order such "re-education through labor"?