Support the Five “Anti-sexual Harassment” Female Activists in UN

Posted on 2015-03-23 by wrchina

Women’s Rights in China Mar 23, 2015

Women’s Rights in China’s staff Jennifer Yuan and Jing Zhang with another feminists ‎March ‎23, ‎2015, holding the sign to support the release of five anti-sexual harassments activists in the front of UN . (Photos by WRIC)

Women’s Rights in China requests the Beijing government to immediately release the five “anti-sexual harassment” female activists, all female human rights defenders such as Su Changlan etc. that fought hard for women’s and children’s rights, and to stop torturing all our sisters who are upholding their personal, ethnic and religious rights!

An Investigation on China Village’s One Child Policy “Three Examinations”

Posted on 2015-03-22 by wrchina

Women’s Rights in China Founder Jing Zhang testified in Congress US Neb 10, 2009

Summary: In rural villages, the Chinese government’s One Child policy is enforced with the ¨Three Examinations,〃 which check women for use of contraceptive rings, pregnancy, and illness practice that is hostile and abhorrent to women.

WRIC Founder Jing Zhang (left four)testified in Congress US in Neb 10, 2009.

Jing Zhang giving a speech before testifying for the hearing

From September 2008 to March 2009, we visited the provinces of Shandong, Guangdong, Guangxi, Sichuan, and He Bei to investigate the conditions of rural villagers with regard to the One Child Policy. During this time, the focal points of our investigations were the so-called ¨Three Examinations,〃 which check women for use of contraceptive rings, pregnancy, and illness four times each year.

The Head of the One Child Policy Commission, Zhao Bai Ge, said: ¨There exist 240 million women of childbearing age inChina now, and among them, 83 percent use birth control and contraception.〃 There is some truth in those words. For example, during a trip to a village in Hebei, we found that among the 288 women in that village, 279 women of childbearing age wore the contraception ring (about 92 percent). Only those who have womb defects did not use the intrauterine device.

But Zhao Bai Ge, a Cambridge graduate, has also said: ¨Chinaˇs One Child Policy is not as controlling as it seems. The people are voluntarily choosing to enforce the policy.〃 That is a complete lie.

Not only do enforcers of the policy disrespect womenthey have no regard for the ethic of preserving personal privacy.
According to a 17-year enforcer of the One Child Policy, as well as several women who have undergone the Three Examinations, the procedure is as follows:
1. The woman is stripped naked for an external physical examination. Her abdomen is pressed to determine if there is any pregnancy, and her breasts are kneaded and squeezed to see if breast milk comes out. Often there are mothers who have no more breast milk.

2. The uterus is checked for the presence of a contraceptive ring.

3. Using a vaginal mirror, the appearance of the vagina is examined. (This part of the procedure is often omitted in poor villages since each vaginal mirror costs 5 RMB). If the vaginal folds appear to be new, this is taken as evidence of either a recent birth or miscarriage. In the case of a miscarriage, proper proof must be provided. If it was a birth, an investigation is launched on the legality of the birth under the terms of the One Child Policy.

While interviewing the One Child Policy supervisor in a SiChuan village, we consulted a book titled “One Child Policy Contract and Protocol”. It clearly indicates that if villagers do not make their appointed date for the Three Examinations, they will be fined 10 RMB a day. We have spoken with many mothers; not one of them wants to go to a gynecological clinic four times a year for a uterine checkup.

Furthermore, women are forced to carry an introduction letter written by their villageˇs One Child Policy supervisor whenever they travel. Those who travel to foreign lands must first report to a local One Child Policy supervisor for the three examinations, and then mail the results back to their own villages. If the village commission office does not receive the test results, a large fine will be imposed upon the family of the woman.

One can imagine the limitations that the quarterly examinations impose on women; their life-giving capacities, travel, and even them most intimate relationship between husband and wife are all controlled by the government. It can be said that until Chinaˇs women reach menopause, they are confined like sows by the fence of forced birth control, controlled and monitored by the government with the sole purpose of not allowing them to have children.

Truthfully, mothers are given no respect in China; their wombs are the property of the Communist regime, raised like livestock with their every use subject to approval. Mothers are required to keep a record of their uterine activities, including the date they put their rings in and the type of ring used, when their periods come each month and duration of their period, and the date on which their child was conceived. To the Communist Party, every mother is a suspected criminal and the three examinations are ways to stop the mother from committing the crimeit is a precaution against future motherhood.

In a way, enforced wearing of the contraceptive ring is like putting shackles on womenor rather, like putting tracking devices on them so that they may be watched and monitored like animals. Women cannot be touched and their men cannot display any interest. The ring guards the motherˇs uterus, representing the nationˇs power, and, as decided by the law, the ring is the nationˇs defender of that power. It lies deep within the womanˇs vagina, not only killing the husbandˇs sperm but also providing the One Child Policy workers with a key to that ring.

If someone dares defy the law and removes the ring, it becomes proof of a crime as severe as murder. The perpetrator will be punished immediately. We interviewed women living on boats on the Guang Dong (Guang Xi River), the majority of whom have removed their rings. They have become escaped criminals ever since, living in constant fear of being caught and punished. Imagine a baby who has to hide inside its motherˇs womb for nine months before it can secretly be born into a society far more dangerous than the womb, then watch its mother face cruel punishment, jail time and heavy fines. And when this child grows up, he or she will have to live under the restrictions of the One Child Policy as well, and will be forced to live a life of fear and unfairness.

In November 2008 we took a long-distance bus trip to Bo Bai County in Guang Xi to investigate the One Child Policy. Upon entering the county borders, a large advertisement for the One Child Policy said: ¨The One Child Policy services create families so that every village and every household can blossom!〃 There are even One Child Policy slogans on both sides of traffic signs with blue background and white text. Itˇs like passing through a bizarre One Child Policy road.

We visited small towns in the Bo Bi Xian County: Shuang Wang and Sha Po.
To protest the imposition of the three examinations on women in Bo Bai Xian County (in particular the fines and penalties for children that exceed the One Child Policy limit), the people there organized the largest uprising since theTiananmen Square demonstrations. More than 50,000 people from the county surrounded and destroyed six government office buildings in the villages and smashed the concrete roads in order to obstruct police cars. There were at least seven deaths, including two police officers who were beaten to death by the rebellious masses and five student demonstrators who were trampled to death. More than 200 people and 100 students were captured and jailed.

What is more, the incident exposed the corruption of the local government, which had used the policy penalties as their own income. Prior to the rebellion, the countyˇs official Website stated that ¨the entire county has provided more than 5,800 men to the labor force, produced more than 200 cars, tied the tubes for the countyˇs 17,000 women, performed abortions and installed contraceptive rings, and imposed [One Child] policy fines that reach up to 7.88 million RMB.〃

(Note: This content was subsequently deleted from the Website.)

In order to investigate the factors leading up to the rebellion, we questioned local barbers, photographers, cab drivers, street peddlers, restaurant workers and hotel personnel, etc., and found that there were a few main points. The factors that these people resented most greatly were the corruption of policy personnel, the fact that the government uses One Child Policy penalties to accumulate wealth, and the unfairness of suddenly enforcing policy rules very strictly after 10 years of leniency.

This last point is one that peasants and farmers repeatedly complain about most bitterly. Previously the One Child policy was not enforced very strictly in Bo Bai County; families with two, three and even up to five children were not uncommon. In those days offending parents could pay off policy personnel with a few hundred RMB. Now, those who exceed the policy limit are forced to pay a finebut now that their ¨illegal〃 sons and daughters are already grown up and attending junior high school, the parents refuse to pay more money. To deal with the villagersˇ refusal to pay up, policy enforcers organize third-class county cadres and policemen into a large military unit, marching into towns and letting no family escape from investigations of policy offenses. They imposed 1000 RMB fines on women who do not make their Three Examination appointment and had the courts of law enforce that payment. They also used an extreme course of action, the ¨One Ring, Two Tie〃 procedure, in which they force (by binding) a woman to go to the hospital, where a ring is inserted and, in addition, a tubal ligation is performed (a surgical procedure in which the fallopian tubes are cut, clamped, blocked, or tied to prevent the womanˇs eggs from reaching her uterus; the sperm is also blocked from traveling along the tube to meet the egg).

Ever since March 1, 2007, a One Child Policy leadership group established by Bobai Countyˇs policy personnel has raided the houses of extremely poor families and villages, tearing down the meager establishments and destroying possessions. Peasants began to hide in the mountains and along the lake shores. More than 250 mothers were captured and arrested at a reservoir near the town of Jiangning and taken to a hospital. There pregnant women were given an abortion shot, women who were not pregnant yet had a contraceptive ring inserted, and those with two or more children had their fallopian tubes cut off surgically.

In the small town of Yingqiao, male villagers and middle school students found this to be the last straw. They rushed into the homes of One Child Policy personnel and smashed their belongings. Afterwards they escaped to the mountains, but were eventually surrounded by more than 300 police officers, and 13 of the villagers were arrested and sent to prison. Especially in the town of Shuangwang near Guangdong, many female villagers who were familiar with the area escaped to Pubei County and Lianjiang City in Guangdong, where they were chased by potential captors sent from Bobai County. The husbands and elderly relatives who were unable to escape with the women were taken hostage by policy personnel, and even larger fines were imposed upon them.

The uprising in Bobai County was defeated, and the rebellious villagers were forced to pay a heavy price: Some older mothers agreed to have their tubes tied in order to beg the government to release their sons from imprisonment, and some women were even forced to undergo tubal ligation three times. Many people were stripped of their homes. Policy personnel took away valuables like electric appliances, farming tools, iron framed beds, aluminum window panes, pigs, chickens, cows, and sheep, while goods of little value such as pots, pans and teapots were all smashed. Many villagers took their sons and daughters to spend the nights in the mountain forests, where many became very ill. Countless families were broken up. Like the aftermath of theTiananmen Square incident, rebellion was once again resurrected in the villages.

The Chinese government has used inhumane methods to implement its One Child Policy. It defies human rights. It is uncivilized and barbarous. This sort of behavior must be condemned by humanity because every human being is born of a mother. Mothers should not be disgraced and humiliated by any government as they are by the Chinese government.

These are the findings of our extensive investigation into the Three Examinations. The department charged with enforcing the One Child Policy is gradually becoming more secretive, especially after the central authorities sent down orders to keep all work confidential. All the people that we interviewed and any exact locations have been concealed for the sake of their safety, which the reader will surely understand.

(Please credit www.wrchina.org)

WRIC Successfully Organized Conference on Family Planning Policy and Population Development

Posted on 2015-03-22 by wrchina

Source: WRIC Translator: Yan Xu

(From left) Well-known writer, Jian Ma, Human Rights activist Ann Noonan, and WRIC’s speaker Yujun Zhang gave speeches in the seminar about Family Planning Policy and Population Development

Women’s Rights in China Successfully Organized Conference on Family Planning Policy and Population Development, (Picture by WRIC)

Family Planning has been the national policy of China for more than 30 years. What are the reasons for this policy? What are its effects on Chinese society? Should the policy continue to be implemented? On May 29th, 2012, Women’s Rights in China held the Conference on Family Planning Policy and Population Development in New York, USA. WRIC invited experts and scholars to discuss the Family Planning Policy’s impact on society, family and individuals in China and problems currently facing population development in China.
A group of scholars participated in a morning round table discussion session, including Tibetan history researcher, woman’s writer Li Jianglin, theorist Hu Ping, WRIC founder Zhang Jing and One Child Policy victim Han Wu. A BBC interview of Ma Jian, author of Yi Zhi Dao, was also broadcast. In the afternoon, Ma Jian, Ann Noonan, Zhang Yujun gave talks. Chinese population policy experts Yang Zhizhu and He Yafu, both of whom were unable to attend, submitted papers that were read by others. More than 120 New York residents attended the event, including Wang Xuezhen, who shared her experience of 11 attempts at meeting Chen Guangcheng during his house arrest.
Professor Yang Zhizhu, formerly Associate Professor of Law at Chinese Youth Political Institute, was fired in 2010 for having an extra-quota child. The birth of his second daughter and its aftermath initiated fierce debate in Chinese society. The event catalyzed the most closely watched public debate the One Child Policy’s thirty year history. Prof. Yang had long commented on China’s Population and Family Control policies. His articles have appeared in Chinese publications such as Southern Weekly, New Kuabao, Eastern Morning Daily, New Beijing, Modern Express, etc. He was a leading activist and dissident against the One Child Policy.
Professor Yang’s report, The Situation of Chinese Women Under The Birth Control Policy, stated, “From fear of persecution of the One Child Policy and forced abortions, many women had no choice but to hide or leave their homes. Ultimately these women gave birth taking considerable risks outside of registered hospitals. This situation resulted in the death rate from birth among mobile population to exceed pregnant women in rural areas. Women giving extra-quota births, which accounted for 6% of the total population of pregnant women, accounted for 50% of deaths.”
He Yafu was a former reporter for Coastal News, founder of Babi Translation Agency. Mr. He had published hundreds of articles on Population and Family Planning Policy on the internet. The web visitor count of his microblog had reached over ten million, leading all other microblogs focusing on the One Child Policy. He also published articles in Eastern Morning Daily, First Financial Daily and China Youth Daily, etc. Mr. He was an accomplished commentator on Population Development and Family Planning Policy in China.
Mr. He’s paper, Why The One Child Policy Should Be Abolished, stated that “Over population in China” was a myth. Of the more than 200 countries worldwide, almost none practiced forced birth control outside of Mainland China. Whether a country was overpopulated depended not on the total number of people, but more importantly its population density. Many countries had higher population density than China, for example, South Korea at 487 persons per square kilometer and Japan at 337. In contrast, China’s population density was at 140 persons per square kilometer. Even taking out inhospitable parts of western China, its population density would still be far below Japan and South Korea. Governments in Japan and South Korea not only did not practice the Family Control Policy but actively encourage reproduction.
Mr. He pointed out that to enforce draconian population control policies would require sufficient rationale. Forced reproductive restrictions infringed upon the basic human rights of citizens. He proposed a test of three criteria: One, would fewer population lead to quicker prosperity? Two, was the Family Planning Policy the only vehicle to control population growth? Three, human rights. The Family Planning Policy could not pass even the first, practical test let alone the latter two. There were no solid reasons to enforce it.
Ms. Ann Noonan was the director of the Committee for U.S. International Broadcasting. Ms, Noonan said that reproduction was a basic human right. The One Child Policy was a severe abuse of human rights. It was one of the most egregious and violent persecutions of women in the world today. Ms. Noonan said that women and their families in China who are victims of human rights abuses need Voice of America (VOA) radio and Radio Free Asia (RFA) broadcasts. She reminded victims of the policy that the American people would not sit idle while millions of innocent victims shed their blood.
WRIC member Zhang Yujun gave a presentation of reports on a widespread yet largely unpublicized child brides in Putian, Fujian. WRIC volunteer Yao Cheng had been investigating and reuniting child brides with their families since 2009.
Mr. Ma Jian gave the last presentation. Ma Jian was a famous Sino-British writer whose novel Beijing Coma received the 2009 British International Free Speech Award, 2009 Athens Literature Award and nominated for Berlin Literature Award. Beijing Coma has been published in more than 30 languages around the world. Mr. Ma was listed as one of fifty most important modern writers by French magazine Lire in 2004. Mr. Ma’s newest work, Yin Zhi Dao was the result of seven years’ labor. It combined large numbers of in-the-field interviews and countless factual cases to tell the complete story of the One Child Policy.

Mr. Ma emphasized that one book could not stop the One Child Policy. However, it was the duty of a writer to express respect for life, especially the life of a child who had yet to taste a breath of air. The Chinese government regularly executed millions of innocent babies in the womb every year. The warmth body of a loving mother became all too frequently the execution ground for babies. Since 2008, Family

Planning Policy passed from the responsibility of the propaganda departments to “secret agencies” headed by Party Committee chairmen at all levels, whose actions were hidden from reporters, making Mr. Ma’s investigation much more difficult.

Family Planning Policy, Mr. Ma said, was the result of a planned economy. Since the planned economy had already been abolished in China, the Family Planning Policy should be as well.

More than one hundred of people attended the WRIC conference

WRIC in Hearing: Chinese Government Crackdown on Jasmine Revolution Extends to Women and Children’s Organizations

Posted on 2015-03-22 by wrchina

Source: WRIC May 12, 2012

WRIC Founder Jing Zhang (from right to fourth) was testifying in Congress.

In February of this year, inspired by the wave of democratic mo vements in the Arab World, the Chinese-language internet community gave birth to messages of the Jasmine Revolution. The Chinese Communist Government reacted in panic and severe crackdown, in blatant violation of the Chinese Constitution and the UN Charter. It dismissed international condemnation, arrested hundreds of dissidents, civil rights attorneys, artists including Jiang Tianyong and Ai Weiwei, even members of the public in the streets who happened to carry jasmine flowers. In Guizhou province, since March 18th, more than a dozen dissidents were arrested for more than a month without reason. One of them, Ms. Wu Yuqin had cancer. Her eighty-year-old mother was also arrested for defending her daughter. Two other women, Wang Lihong and Liang Haiyi, were also arrested and charged for expressing opinions related to the Jasmine Revolution. The Chinese government has also put non-governmental organizations and their workers under surveillance. The work of All Girls Allowed had suffered drastic impacts because of threats and harassment of the police and National Security Bureau.

WRIC Volunteers under Surveillance

Women’s Rights in China is a non-profit organization registered in the United States. WRIC operates many projects benefiting girl babies and orphans in a number of provinces in Mainland China. One of these, the Rural Girls Assistance Program was a charitable project whose aim was the aid of rural Chinese mothers and baby girls. Every month we distribute funds to help families of baby girls buy milk and supplement the nutrition of pregnant women. The purpose of this aid was to encourage women who gave birth to girls, to combat traditional discrimination against women and to erase gender imbalance. More than 500 babies and orphans have benefited in this program. However, since March of this year, our workers and volunteers have been harassed by local police and security agents. They had been detained and interrogated multiple times and forced to divulge every detail of this program. Officials of local towns and villages disseminated rumors that workers were trouble makers who would be arrested by the police, which troubled and frustrated mothers who received aid.

Police in one province (to protect the personal safety of our workers, we elect not to identify the specific location.) not only conducted forced interrogations, but also sent two agents to record the aid distribution locations by video. They followed our workers on their visits to families in remote villages, “witnessing” the conversations between our workers and families receiving aid. When our workers and local families were talking at the doorstep, they would stand close by. When our workers entered local houses, they would enter and sit down as well. One may well imagine our workers and the rural families’ feelings. Some families requested to stop receiving aid in order to escape police attention. They feared that the attention would have long-lasting ill effects for the whole family. Many volunteers also backed out of this charitable project. They entered our work to do good for the local community but found themselves treated as felons under open police surveillance. Neighbors of our workers also became suspicious and opposed their work.

Mothers came to receive aid from WRIC via Rural Girls Assistance Program, (Picture Provided by WRIC)

A police agent (black leather jacket) videotaping mothers receiving aid from Rural Girls Assistance Program, (Picture Provided by WRIC)

A farmer whose family receive our aid was forcibly pushed into a police vehicle for interrogation. His cell phone was confiscated. The police threatened him, asking whether the aid carried any conditions, what the volunteers said to him, whether there was any encouragement to join Falun Gong. He was not released until an interrogation lasting hours after he was no longer deemed a “suspect”.

In another location of WRIC’s program, as a result of police harassment, field workers and some aid-receiving families requested an early end to the Rural Girls Assistance Program. Hundreds of baby girls and their families would lose the 100 yuan per month assistance for milk, which carried no conditions. To a family whose monthly income was only between 300 to 500 yuan, this would represent a grave loss.

A field worker told me, “It’s hopeless. If we continue the program, we might get into prison. If the government wants to arrest someone, there’s no shortage of made-up charges. In China, it’s not easy to do good even if you want to. The government wants to watch everything. It doesn’t want to overlook any detail, even your though. They have all the money and all the manpower. That’s what it means to have a strong and glorious country.”
Arrests in Tiananmen Doesn’t Spare Pregnant Woman

The openings of the People’s Congress and the Political Consultation Congress in March coincided with the Jasmine Revolution. The government’s surveillance and oppression became even more rampant. Police arrested all “questionable personalities” found in sensitive locations Tiananmen Square and McDonald’s Restaurants and kept in detention centers such as Jiu Jin Zhuang( Short-term imprisonment center ) in Beijing. Ms. Nie Nina, a woman from Henan province, got in touch with us through difficulties. She has now been pregnant for five months. Her family house was forcibly demolished, she could find no redress from the local government. She was forced to petition the central government in Beijing and was beaten many times as a result. She had been put into administrative detention in Beijing’s Jiu Jin Zhuang center. On March 28th, Ms. Nie was transferred from Jiu Jin Zhuang to her local detention center for ten days. During this time, she suffered beatings, including to her head, from the hands of government agents.

On April 19th, Ms. Nie was again arrested and kept in Xiangcheng, Henan detention center. Seven to eight male government agents undressed her in the court yard of the detention center in front of 60 onlookers, leaving only the bra on her upper body. Afterwards, she was dragged to ultrasound exams and threatened with forced abortion. She was extremely frightened and greatly humiliated. In the end, because her pregnancy was deemed “legal”, she was spared an abortion after her family frantically called for help. During her three day detention, she was given no food or water by the authorities. One day she was suffering severe stomach pain from hunger, a woman working in the kitchen sneaked some bread to her. Government agents told her, “We’ll kill you if you go to Beijing to petition again. Police in Beijing told us to arrest you.”

March 15, 2011 Ms. Nie is forcibly arrested by police and government officials.(Pictures provided by WRIC)

I asked if she had visited sensitive locations with connection with the Jasmine Movement. She answered that she had no idea about any “jasmine”. Her only purpose was to uphold her rights by petitioning in Beijing.

Similarly, a victim of the Birth Planning Policy was detained in Jiu Jin Zhuang in March. A farmer’s wife from Nanping, Fujian province was forced to undergo tubal ligation, a sterilization operation several years ago. The doctor mistakenly severed the ureter tract of a kidney, leading to infections in her kidney system. Even when Beijing hospitals proved that the ureter tracked was medically severed, local government and hospital refused to compensate her, forcing her to petition the central government.

According to her, after multiple arrests, beatings and detainment, she was used as an example of “illegal petitioner in arrest” in the local television station’s program, which led to the destruction of her reputation and collateral punishment to her children and family. When she was taken into hospital in March for forced “treatment”, she lost all freedom. She was followed by agents even when she went home to pick up clothing. Local law enforcement agents threatened that if she petitioned the government again, her death would be in “murky” circumstances. She only recently knew that the nervous atmosphere was the result of something called “jasmine”. She said that one kidney was completely destroyed, her head was also beaten. She estimated that she would not have long to live and had no desire to persist in living. Hearing these words, the only things we could offer were comforting words and prayer.

Cutting Off Foreign Funding, Scholarships Stopped

The Orphan Scholarship Program is one of WRIC’s projects. As a result of the One Child Policy and bias against girls, many new born girls were abandoned by parents quickly after birth. Buddhist nuns in Tongcheng, Anhui province adopted many abandoned baby girls. WRIC provided scholarships and aid to more than twenty of these orphans according to their ages. Since the beginning of this year, the guardians of these orphans, the nuns suddenly became unenthusiastic about such assistance. They almost completely stopped accepting aid in February and March. After a special investigation, we discovered that the nun in charge of accepting the funding, a member of the Tongcheng Buddhist Association, received pressure from “talks” with local authorities. She was no longer willing to have any connection with economic aid from abroad, even charitable foreign Christian donations.

The central government announced its orphan assistance program many months ago. The funding was supposed to be retrospective to January of 2010. In our March, 2011 investigation, we discovered that even provincial-level welfare agencies had not seen the funding, let alone city-, county-, and township-level agencies. In the Tongcheng nunneries, not one has heard of such assistance.

We do not know whether the Orphan Scholarship Program had any connections with the government crackdown over the Internet Jasmine Revolution or the content of the conversations between Tongcheng police and the nuns, but the sudden change in the nuns’ attitude towards scholarship donations speaks to the pressure they were under. It also speaks to the Chinese government, especially local government’s suspicion of foreign charities and donations. This suspicion totally dismisses the needs of the most vulnerable group, the interests of the abandoned orphans. In other words, the Communist government, in order to maintain stability for its rule, not only controls dissidents, civil rights advocates and internet opinion, but also keeps surveillance over activities of foreign non-governmental organizations. As these organizations’ work mainly benefit women, children and disease patients, such controls led to direct suffering of these vulnerable communities.

‘Harper, Help Free My Dad,’ Pleads McGill Law Student

Posted on 2015-03-22 by wrchina

‘Harper, Help Free My Dad,’ Pleads McGill Law Student
By Matthew Little, Epoch Times | November 5, 2014
Last Updated: November 5, 2014 10:24 pm

(L-R) Conservative MP Scott Reid, Wang Bingwu, Ti-Anna Wang, Liberal MP Irwin Cotler, former MP David Kilgour, and NDP MP Wayne Marston called for democracy activist Dr. Wang Bingzhang to be released from prison in China during a press conference on Parliament Hill on Nov 5, 2014. (Matthew Little/Epoch Times)

Ti-Anna Wang called on Prime Minister Stephen Harper during a Parliament Hill press conference on Nov. 5, 2014, to ask the Chinese leadership to release her father, Wang Bingzhang, a democracy activist who studied at McGill University and has been held in solitary confinement in China for 12 years. Behind her is Green Party leader Elizabeth May. (Matthew Little/Epoch Times)
OTTAWA—Ti-Anna Wang didn’t really understand her father. His endless efforts to push China toward democracy sent him around the world, and his political activism put him at odds with the family.
She was 13 when her father, Dr. Wang Bingzhang, was abducted from Vietnam in 2002 and handed over to Chinese police to be tried in China. Since then he has been serving a life sentence in solitary confinement.
Dr. Wang is a hero to many, a man who walked away from a lucrative medical career in hopes of changing his country for the better. He founded the overseas Chinese democracy movement, and travelled the world in that pursuit.
His Canadian ties are solid. Wang got his PhD at McGill University, where his daughter is now in her first year of law school, a career choice inspired by her father. Wang left behind a family here, including Ti-Anna and her two brothers.
She didn’t understand him so well when she was young, she said. His activism took him away from her. Now, 12 years later, she knows better who her father is.
“He is very much more present in my life now,” she said, speaking of her feelings and thoughts about her father.
Ti-Anna isn’t alone in her effort to free her dad. Her uncle, Wang Bingwu, has been appealing on Parliament Hill for a week, and last year spent days on end in front of the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa calling for his brother’s release.
“It is unbelievable torture to my brother in solitary confinement for the last 12 years. My brother suffered three strokes. The first one was almost fatal … I don’t want to see him die in jail,” Wang Bingwu said.
Trumped Up Charges
On Wednesday Nov. 5, Ti-Anna was joined on Parliament Hill by MPs from every federal party in calling for Dr. Wang’s release.
Liberal MP Irwin Cotler said Wang’s imprisonment is an affront to international treaties both Canada and China have signed affirming basic rights.
“He was tried in secret … not permitted to speak, not permitted to rebut any of the charges against him, all of which were trumped up and fraudulent,” said Cotler during a press conference.
NDP MP Wayne Marston said there has been change at the top of the Chinese regime and with current leader Xi Jinping now taking the helm, it’s a good time for Prime Minister Stephen Harper to press for Wang’s release on his upcoming trip to China.
“There is possibly an opportunity here for some change. And it is my view and the view of the NDP that that is the time for our prime minister to bring to the fore the human rights issues.”
“It is critical and crucial that Canada resumes its leadership role in the field of international human rights,” said Marston.
Wang’s case has been carried by many MPs over the years, including former MP and Secretary of State David Kilgour, one of Canada’s foremost experts on China, according to Cotler.
Kilgour said Xi has promised profound change in China, and now is the time to prove it.
“Releasing Dr. Wang would show both the Chinese people and the world that Xi intends to stand by what he says,” Kilgour said.
Conservative MP Scott Reid also lent his support, as did Green Party leader Elizabeth May who said Canada must insist Dr. Wang be freed and returned to Canada.
Committed to the Cause
Ti-Anna has always been careful not to criticize the Chinese regime, hoping that small deference would help ease her father’s release. To date, it doesn’t seem to have helped, perhaps because of the stature of her father’s work.
“He is the founder of the overseas Chinese democracy movement and dedicated his life to promoting rule of law, freedom, and human rights in China,” she said.
He was sentenced for espionage and terrorism, falsified charges used to justify his punishment.
“In a country without meaningful rule of law, my family has no means to legally appeal my father’s conviction despite having secured exonerating evidence for the graver charges against him,” said Ti-Anna.
Her advocacy on his behalf has led the Chinese regime to refuse her a visa to go there. She hasn’t seen her father in five years. That hasn’t weakened her resolve, she said.
“Even though it’s been so long that the case has dragged on, in a sense I feel more committed now because I have a better understanding of what is going on,” she said.
But the time and effort takes a toll, she added. “There’s just this fatigue in a sense, emotionally and physically and even financially. But on the other hand I also feel very committed to the cause as a whole.”
She wants the Canadian government to intervene more assertively on her father’s behalf and for Harper to use all diplomatic opportunities to secure the release of her father.
High-level diplomacy is her greatest hope for freeing her father she said, and she wanted all MPs to call on Harper to that end.
“It was the very values espoused by Canada and other democracies that inspired my father. If we cannot turn to this government and its leaders to advocate for his release, to whom can we turn?”

Jiangling Li: Forced Abortion, a Permanent Scar on Women

Posted on 2015-03-22 by wrchina

Source: WRIC, Translator by Yang Yu 05-29-2012

Li Jiangli (left) talked about her experience of forced abortion with other women

Women’s Right in China held in Flushing, New York Office “China’s Family Planning Policy and Population Conference” on May 29, 2012. Participants of the conference had very heated discussion on China’s forced family planning policy and its impact on Chinese society.

The first speaker was the Tibetan history expert and writer, Li Jiangli. She made public the first time her horrible experience of forced abortion. She said, abortion brings more pain than any other physical pains to a woman because not only she has no dignity when the abortion is in process but also she feels like a conspirator killing her child. Women can gather together and talk about anything – but not about abortion because the process is too painful. Li Jiang stated, abortion is the commonly shared nightmare, scar, and secret of all the women in China. On the other hand, a woman will never share the experience with her husband or male partner, because he cannot truly understand the pain of his woman. Men are excluded from the issue of abortion and it is likely they don’t want to learn about the experience. Being unable to protect his woman makes the gap between two sexes.

Theorist Hu Ping also explained his point of view that China’s forced family planning policy is an unprecedented violence. What is more perplexing is that the policy is enforced without much resistance – even the privileged class is included. From official statistics, there are annually 10,000,000 abortion cases in China, which is like massacre of 10,000,000 people. One-Child Policy incurred millions of families without decedents, because they have only one child and later loose them when parents loose reproduction ability. One-Child Policy also results in the fact that the only child is harder to educate. In order to advertise the family planning policy, the China Communist Party fervently advocates for eugenics, which is closely interconnected with Fascism. Besides, the family planning policy consolidates discrimination against peasants in China. In fact, there has never been any societal discrimination against peasants before the China Communist Party established in recent 60 years.

Han Wu asserted that men are indirect victims of the family planning policy as well. After his wife was sterilized, he felt like their intimate life was unlocked by the sterilization ring. All the participants concluded that both men and women are victims of forced family planning policy.
When discussing why the forced family planning policy is so entrenched, initiator of Women’s Right in China, Zhang Jing used a couple of figures to demonstrate the issue. Zhang Jing said, according to official statistics from Chinese government in 2005, there were 58,700,000 family planning officials, 1,142,000 full-time family planning officials, and 57,270,000 part-time family planning officials. This means there are more than 100,000,000 people, which are one tenth of the whole population of China, involved in enforcing family planning policy. What is more, there are about 40,000 community family planning offices and about 5, 000 family planning service stations. The State Council has more than 20 departments dedicated for family planning policy – no such governmental policies would be this prevalent! Averagely, every Chinese citizen annually pays ten yuan for the family planning policy. Aside from the shocking benefit chain, the family planning policy even practices “political veto,” thus further consolidating the link between the family planning policy and the political life of governmental officials.

When discussing how to change the family planning policy, Li Jianglin asserted that women should no longer remain silent, and speak out their pain from abortion; otherwise, this pain will go on to their daughters, daughters-in-law, and granddaughters, etc.At the end of the conference, an interview from BBC with Ma Jian, a traveling author in Britain, was played. Ma Jian stated his new book Dark Road was a persecution of China’s family planning policy, and was also an attempt to regain women’s control over their uterus.

WRIC Demands Release of the Five “Anti-Sexual Harassment” Activists!

Posted on 2015-03-15 by wrchina

Women’s Rights in China March 10, 2015

A group of young persistent female leaders who have been pushing for a feminist movement in China plan to fully launch activities to promote “Mechanisms to Prevent and Redress sexual harassment” in Beijing at the opportune timing of Women’s Day and the date of meetings for both the National People’s Congress and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). In January, they had already drafted and promoted their “Suggestions on Establishing Mechanisms to Combat Sexual Harassment on Public Transportation” in Guangdong. The recent activity’s theme is “Stop sexual harassment, we need a safe environment”. Activists published promotional material in full color to popularize the proposed law, hoping to raise concern from the representatives of the congress and the media. However, those who participated in the activity on 6 March, namely Zheng Churan, Li Tingting, Xu Ting, Wu Rongrong, Yu Lian, Wei Tingting and Wang Man, were subsequently arrested by the police and locked up in Beijing. Up to now, besides Xu Ting and Yu Lian, who were released, the other five women are still in criminal detention. Women’s Rights in China sees this as a brutal act of random arrest and an abuse of power. It is crude behavior which shows that the Chinese government is openly disregarding human rights and women’s rights, even under the public eye.

It is a well-known fact that domestic violence, gender inequality, keeping concubines and sexual harassment are the four major issues that torment women in China. A few hundred million women and children are living under an environment with no security mechanisms. Although the public has long been concerned about domestic violence and sexual harassment, and has advocated and made proposals for legislation to combat these problems, the laws have still not been passed for all these years. According to a survey conducted by Sina.com, 84% women have faced different levels of sexual harassment. The Chinese Social Science Institute carried out a random survey of 169 women in Beijing, Shanghai, Changsha and Xian, and 119 women said that they were touched by male strangers in public settings, composing of 70% of the interviewees. A survey by Guangzhou City Women’s Federation in March, 2014 indicated that approximately 80% of female university students looked forward to progress on the anti-sexual harassment legislation, showing that the issue of sexual harassment is becoming more and more important to the Chinese public. All these statistics are proof that sexual harassment is rampant in China and that there is an urgent need for legislation to protect girls and women, which is the responsibility that the government cannot deny. Yet the People’s Congress is not approving the relevant legislation, the police are ignoring sexual harassment cases, and when a few women with a sense of duty stand up to speak about it, they are arbitrarily arrested and detained. These young women were only speaking up to prevent women from disturbance, and physical and mental harm. A sense of security is a basic psychological need, next in importance to food and breathing. It is one of the foundations for a harmonious society.

The young activists were put into danger before Women’s Day. Their kind hopes became a disaster for them, but they are true to their conscience and have a strong sense of duty. Their contribution towards the women’s liberation movement in China is irreplaceable.

A society is considered to be civilized not because of how much filthy money it has, or how many dissidents it arrests to demonstrate its limitless power; it is considered so because of its belief in law and its respect towards human rights, especially women’s and children’s rights: does the government protect these rights? How does the legal system safeguard these rights? This is a direct indication of the civilization level of a country’s leader. Women’s Rights in China strongly opposes the Xi Jinping government’s large-scale raids on dissidents, activists, journalists and academics, their suppression of independent NGOs and their confiscation of NGO property. This only harms the development of society. These are acts against humanity that go against the global trend, so it must stop! Women’s Rights in China requests the Beijing government to immediately release the five “anti-sexual harassment” female activists, all female human rights defenders such as Su Changlan etc. that fought hard for women’s and children’s rights, and to stop torturing all our sisters who are upholding their personal, ethnic and religious rights!

Women’s Rights in China