Our personal sources in Beijing have informed us of several recent development which are scarcely being reported in the Western mainstream media, whose attention has been distracted by Tibet. Various powers in Beijing have taken advantage of this situation to escalate arrests of perceived dissidents, and to ratchet up other forms of information control.
Inter alia, two prominent Beijing lawyers – meaning, REAL lawyers (in contrast to CLB, the Blob) – have been assaulted, arrested and illegally detained in the past two weeks, but presently the only available information is in Chinese, so I must leave it to Catherine to translate those stories for you a bit later.
Note from Catherine:
Those two lawyers are Teng Biao and Li Heping. Teng was kidnapped on 6 March and was illegally detained for 2 days before he was released without charge. Within 10 hours after Teng’s kidnap, the car of another lawyer Li Heping was rammed by a police vehicle. Li was kidnapped and severely beaten by unknown assailants in October 2007. Chinese Law Prof Blog (NOT to be confused with the odious “China Law Blob, CLB”) has a post about this incident with relevant links.
Internet connection in some major cities in China is said to be suffering from nanny’s zealous screening at the moment. Activities have been significantly slowed down. I am now posting a translation from China Digital Times for the convenience of a few friends behind the Great Wall. It is the translation of a 12-point petition issued by a group of writers and scholars in China with regard to the situation in Tibet:
