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ellisonz

(27,711 posts) Thu Jan 19, 2012, 01:45 AM Jan 2012

Chinese dissident in U.S. tells of harassment, torture

January 18, 2012 | 7:33 pm

REPORTING FROM BEIJING -- Chinese dissident writer Yu Jie, who fled to the United States this month, says he was tortured and harassed in 2010 even as the Nobel Peace Prize was being awarded to his best friend, Liu Xiaobo.

Speaking at a news conference in Washington on Wednesday, Yu said he was taken from his home Dec. 9, 2010, the day before the Nobel ceremony, forced into a car with a black hood over his head and taken to an undisclosed location. There he was stripped naked and forced to the floor, where he was kicked and slapped. Security officers threatened to break his fingers and burn his face with cigarettes.

"Right now, foreigners are awarding Liu Xiaobo the Nobel Peace Prize, humiliating our party and government. We’ll pound you to death to avenge this," Yu said the head security officer told him. "There are no more than 200 intellectuals in the country who oppose the Communist Party and are influential. If the central authorities think that their rule is facing a crisis, they can capture them all in one night and bury them alive."

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Yu, his wife and their 3-year-old son were permitted to leave China on Jan. 11 for the United States. Liao Yiwu, another dissident writer who was not allowed to leave, crossed China’s border into Vietnam in July and went into exile in Germany.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/01/china-beijing-dissident-chinese-writer-yu-jie-torture-washington.html

Free Liu Xiaobo!

6 replies

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Chinese dissident in U.S. tells of harassment, torture (Original Post) ellisonz Jan 2012 OP

Oh, this SO reeks of propaganda... BeHereNow Jan 2012 #1

It's not. ellisonz Jan 2012 #2

I'm going to keep an open mind on all possibilities. BeHereNow Jan 2012 #3

Yu Jie is a very well-known activist... ellisonz Jan 2012 #5

Remember, LA Times was one of the *very few* who came out against the Iraq War. joshcryer Jan 2012 #6

send him to Guantanamo! provis99 Jan 2012 #4

BeHereNow

(17,162 posts)

1. Oh, this SO reeks of propaganda...

Reply to ellisonz (Original post)

Thu Jan 19, 2012, 02:01 AM

Jan 2012

There is a steady drumbeat to demonize China.
Cui bono?
My guess is his attackers were from the CIA.
BHN

ellisonz

(27,711 posts)

2. It's not.

Reply to BeHereNow (Reply #1)

Thu Jan 19, 2012, 02:08 AM

Jan 2012

I suggest you do some reading on the People's Republic of China. It is what it seems. The PRC is a brutal, totalitarian regime that does not tolerate dissent to its corrupt, undemocratic political system.

http://www.amnesty.org/en/region/china

China: A maverick dares to challenge the Party line
By Jonathan Mirsky
Published: Thursday, August 25, 2005

LONDON — No one living in China is more daring than the maverick writer Yu Jie. He recently said of the memorial to Japan's war dead: "We criticize the Yasukuni Shrine, but we have Mao Zedong's shrine in the middle of Beijing, which is our own Yasukuni. This is a shame to me, because Mao Zedong killed more Chinese than the Japanese did. Until we are able to recognize our own problems, the Japanese won't take us seriously."

For China's Communist Party, there are two first-degree thought crimes here. First, Mao's huge portrait still looms over Tiananmen Square and China's current leaders claim to be his heirs. Second, Beijing regularly condemns Japanese prime ministers for visiting the Yasukuni Shrine to venerate dead soldiers, including those hanged as World War II criminals. Anti-Japanese demonstrations in Chinese cities are encouraged by the government; any other public protest risks prompt and violent suppression. Yu Jie, therefore, stepped deliberately into China's most dangerous political minefield.

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Now 30, Yu started his defiance early. In 1997, when he was a graduate student at Beijing University, he attacked the Party for snuffing out the spirit of democracy that in the early 1920s had inspired many young Chinese. One of the founders of the Chinese branch of the writers' union PEN, he champions other writers who touch the tiger's backside. He is a Christian, he supports America's war in Iraq and he wishes China had a spiritual leader like the Dalai Lama. He has been arrested and detained and his computer has been searched and confiscated.

Those who heard Yu Jie last year during his brief U.S. lecture tour wonder how long he will remain at large. But in 2000, after being turned down for a job at the China Writers' Association, Yu said: "From this moment on, the one who lives in fear will not be me, it will be those fellows who hide in the dark corners. From this moment on, I will live out in the sunlight. I will live a fuller and happier life."

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/24/opinion/24iht-edmirsky.html

BeHereNow

(17,162 posts)

3. I'm going to keep an open mind on all possibilities.

Reply to ellisonz (Reply #2)

Thu Jan 19, 2012, 02:25 AM

Jan 2012

I have a wonderful friend who has been working in China for the last
five years or so- He is a UCLA PHD in a specialized area of the history of China.
I want to contact him and see what he thinks about the story.

Remember, NYTimes helped beat the drum for the Bush/Cheney junta
invasion and FUBAR occupation of Iraq...

You can not separate China and Iran- consider that in your relections
on recent events.

I want to hear more from a credible source.

BHN

ellisonz

(27,711 posts)

5. Yu Jie is a very well-known activist...

Reply to BeHereNow (Reply #3)

Thu Jan 19, 2012, 03:15 AM

Jan 2012

I think the PRC let him go because he was to much of a threat both dead and alive so long as he was in the PRC. I posted that article simply because it shows that he is not cooked up from nothing. I'd wager your friend from UCLA will tell you much the same.

There's a difference between highly political Iraq reporting and the same near-unanimous judgment of the international community about how the PRC treats both human rights and political activists.

The Nobel Peace Prize presentation speech to Liu Xiaobo in absentia: http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2010/presentation-speech.html

joshcryer

(62,276 posts)

6. Remember, LA Times was one of the *very few* who came out against the Iraq War.

Reply to BeHereNow (Reply #3)

Thu Jan 19, 2012, 03:40 AM

Jan 2012

It was very unpopular yet they stood their ground, March 14, 2003: http://www.latimes.com/news/custom/scimedemail/la-oew-iraqcc21mar21,0,4372884.story

provis99

(13,062 posts)

4. send him to Guantanamo!

Reply to ellisonz (Original post)

Thu Jan 19, 2012, 02:33 AM

Jan 2012

where we can harass and torture him as a Chinese terrorist spy.

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