Inside China Today

Inside China Today – Sunday 27th September

- CCP steps up oppression of quake victims;
- The CCP’s pre-National Day Show;
- Water pollution shocking.

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CCP steps up oppression of quake victims

It has been more than a year since the devastating Sichuan earthquake. However many parents of children who died as a result of poorly constructed schools are still trying to seek justice. Thousands of students died during the quake, and parents are pointing the finger at local officials for the substandard construction. Parents had tried to go to Beijing to appeal, but many have been sent back home. With the politically sensitive date October 1st coming up, the Chinese communist regime has stepped up its oppression of the grieving parents.

More than 240 students from an Elementary School in Dujianyan’s died during the quake. The school had less than 700 students. A parent of one deceased child surnamed Li says,

“It’s been over a year, and every night I cannot sleep well. The image of my adorable son constantly appears in front of my eyes. They are so young and innocent, and shouldn’t have died. Those who should have died are the greedy and corrupt officials, and those black-hearted building constructors.”

The parent said, the Communist regime has made a series of restrictions for parents trying to appeal, but it has not solved any problems.

“When we appealed, the government ruled that only five people can go at once, if you have more than that, then your appeal is illegal. If the same five people constantly appeal, then they’re classified as harassing the appeals office, and we’re then labelled with this crime. If our problem isn’t solved by our appeals to Dujianyan, and we go to Chengdu or Beijing, then we’re said to be appealing to the wrong level of government, and our appeal ends up in vain. Why is this? They only make a record, and don’t solve anything. For example, they wanted to investigate the school’s building materials, but until now no tests have been done. The school grounds are empty, how can they test? It’s already been more than a year and (the officials) are pretending like nothing’s wrong and just try to comfort us. All of the parents are very dissatisfied.”

With the approach of October 1st, when the Communist regime will celebrate its 60th anniversary of rule of China, oppression on the parents has increased.

“The parents dare not displease (the authorities), if I take a lead to organise something, then the State Security, or Public Security will immediately seek me down. And if we go and air our grievances at a particular place, or go appeal to someone, like in Beijing, then we will be captured and taken back. We will be detained for a month or half a month. If I make a phone call now, now that its close to October 1st, if I call a parent and say that we will go to appeal, then I would been seen as the leader and the government will detain me, this is for sure. The government is severely controlling us, who dares to (misbehave)? If anyone stands up, that person will be targeted. Governance of the people, what is that? With no people, where do they get their governance from? Now they are just governing us.”

Ms Li a Parent, who’s child was a victim in the disaster says that authorities are prohibiting them from being interviewed by media, and stopping them from speaking the truth or going to appeal.

“These are all shoddy constructions, it’s been more than a year, and there are no results. I don’t even know if this phone call is being tapped by them or not. They all know about the phones, I can’t say much. All I can say is that they don’t allow the parents to go.”

The Communist regime’s aversion to the issue of school construction qualities has always been the focus of overseas media. The regime suppresses those parents who seek investigations into the shoddy construction, and holds those responsible to account. To cover up the truth, the CCP is spending huge sums of money.

“Now the schools are being built very splendidly. What’s surface work? Looking at these schools, my heart is bleeding. It is like the return for the cost of the lives lost. These schools cost at least tens of millions of Yuan. What are we meant to think? We have expended this, if the government used the funds, and had spent just an extra 20,000 or 50,000 Yuan, then not so many children would’ve died. If you can seek out all these black hearted constructors and responsible officials, and hold them accountable, we will all feel very good. No matter how much money you give me, be it 5 million or 10 million, my son’s life cannot be brought back.”

Some Chinese issue experts believe the continual cover up by the CCP off the shoddy constructions will ignite even greater public anger.

This is Matthew Ytsma reporting for SOH Wellington, New Zealand.

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The CCP’s Pre-National Day Show

October 1rst marks the 60th year anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) regime. According to custom, CCP authorities plan to hold a National Day parade and review of troops in Beijing. CCP authorities dispatch troops, Armed Police Forces, and other similar kinds of power, and spend lots of money and resources to assure its success.

As early as last December, Chinese media voiced its disagreement with planned activities, citing huge troop reviews as both labor- and money-consuming. Recently, Mr. Chen Xi, the famous human rights activist from Guizhou Province, told SOH reporters that this is a continuation of the so called “Image Project” performed by the CCP’s one party dictatorship. Xi added that such events convey despotism and arbitrariness to people at home and abroad, seriously disturbing residents, and depriving their human rights.

[Recording] From what I know, during this large National Day celebration period in Beijing, people in Beijing are not allowed to open their windows and doors. Isn’t this a huge disturbance to residents? Since they are a one party dictatorship, they don’t care. Because they’ve been disturbing and annoying people for a long time, they don’t have this concept. For example, they are not supervised by public opinion and don’t listen to different voices from people’s various medias. They insistently spend taxpayers’ money on this kind of showy celebration, which has been done for several decades.”

According to Chen Xi, local democratic dissenters in Guizhou Province have become targets of the CCP’s strict monitoring and suppression.

[Recording] For example, last night, the police especially knocked on my door to see if I was here. Then, today, there are 5 or 6 policemen around us when we have activities.

Chen Xi said that CCP authorities will seize this opportunity to ballyhoo and laud peace and safety.

[Recording] “…So they have a chance. In other words, they were given a chance after 60 years. They will definitely not miss it and they’ll whoop it up. They want to largely change their ugly image in people’s mind.

Chen Xi stated that the CCP’s show in front of people at home and abroad actually demonstrates the panic in their heart.

[Recording] They do this as a show for people at home and abroad, especially domestic people. For instance, we know recently social unrest, group events, and voices from rights-protectors have emerged continuosly. This means, folks greatly complain about the CCP’s overbearing behavior. Then they show Chinese people their arbitrariness and pass on this kind of information.

[Recording] The CCP wants to show international society their regime’s great power, large accumulated wealth, and sacrifice more people’s benefits. So they need such a large action to express this voice. This is also a voice of panic from their heart.

In Chen Xi’s final comments, he calls the 60 years under CCP rule a horrific 60 years. It has deprived people of their dignity and rights.

[Recording] The CCP’s activities are methods to legitimize their governance of this country. What is that based on? It’s based on their outrageousness and violence, as well as mastering a kind of absolute power. They show it by depriving people’s dignity, which is different from international society. So for the CCP’s authority, this is their consistent style.”

This is Keith Ware of SOH Washington.

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Water pollution shocking

A recent survey conducted by the Chinese State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) showed that the scope and severity of water pollution in China is horrifying and has become a public crisis.

According to SEPA’s investigations, in the past two years, there were 140 water pollution accidents in China occurring on average every 2 to 3 days.

However figures are far worse according to the Ministry of Supervision’s statistics, which show in recent years, more than 1700 water pollution accidents annually.

According to the “State of the Environment in China” issued by China’s Environmental Protection Administration, the evaluation of water quality that was carried out on nearly 140,000 kilometers of rivers, showed approximately 40% is severely polluted. All seven major river systems were included.

Another important survey issued by the Environmental Protection Administration showed the national statistics of 131 rivers flowing through cities, of which 36 rivers were severely polluted, 21 were heavily polluted and 38 were moderately polluted.

The communiqué said the Yellow River in the past 10 years, is constantly being polluted. The quality of water is so low it has basically lost the function of water. The Yangtze River is no exception with 60% polluted.

In the evaluation of a study done on 2,000 km of the Huaihe River, 78.7% did not meet the standards for drinking water, 79.7% did not meet the standards for fishing, and 32% did not meet the standards for irrigation water. 10 years ago, it held more than 60 species of fish all of which are now extinct.

In addition inter-regional rivers are extensively polluted, localized small and medium rivers in the cities are not able to escape contamination. In Guangzhou, the 14 waters that form the Pearl River which weaves through urban areas are black and smelly.

According to the survey of Guangzhou Marine Geological Survey Bureau 95% of the sea water in the Pearl River was heavily polluted. The East China Sea used to be as rich as “sea granary.” Now red tides occur every 4 years in June. Experts point out that this is the result of concentration of the country’s pollution through rivers to the coast; it had ruthlessly torn the “last defending line” of China’s water pollution.

This is Matthew Ytsma reporting for SOH Wellington, New Zealand.

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