Police in China have sent two activists to labor camps and charged a veteran dissident with subversion over calls for public rallies echoing those in the Arab world, a rights group said yesterday.
Hua Chunhui (華春輝) and Wei Qiang (魏強) have been sentenced without trial to “re-education through labor,” marking the first formal punishments meted out in a major government crackdown on dissent, the Chinese Human Rights Defenders said.
Sentences to Chinese labor camps rarely exceed three years.
Authorities have rounded up activists since calls in February for “Jasmine” rallies in China similar to those in the Arab world, which have swept leaders out of power in Tunisia and Egypt, and sparked a bloody conflict in Libya.
Zhu Yufu (朱虞夫), 59, was formally charged with inciting subversion of state power in China’s Zhejiang Province on Tuesday, the Hong Kong-based rights group said in a statement.
Zhu is the fifth person to be formally arrested since the crackdown began, while nearly 40 other activists have been criminally detained and at least 18 — including artist Ai Weiwei (艾未未) — have “disappeared” into police custody, it said.
Police in Hangzhou told Zhu’s ex-wife, Jiang Hangli (蔣杭莉) on Tuesday that prosecutors had approved his arrest for “inciting subversion of state power,” Jiang said by telephone.
“Before he was detained on March 5, he’d been followed everywhere he went, 24 hours a day for 20 days by the security people, so he never had any chance to participate in any political activities,” said Jiang, who still shares an apartment with Zhu.
The subversion charge is a broad accusation often used to punish denunciations of the Chinese Communist Party and calls for democratic reform.
“We don’t know the specific reasons, but our guess is that it may be related to a poem he wrote that suggested people go out to stroll on the square and on the streets,” said Zhu Zhengming (祝政明), a pro-democracy advocate and friend of Zhu Yufu in Hangzhou.
“But he didn’t say any time or place or suggest that people wave any banners or shout any slogans. He just called for a stroll,” he said.
Group “strolls” have become one way for Chinese people to show, in an oblique way, discontent with the government.
Human rights groups said Zhu may have been detained for spreading messages online about the rally calls.
TAIWAN IS TAIWAN: US Representative Tom Tiffany said the amendment was not controversial, as ‘Taiwan is not — nor has it ever been — part of Communist China’ The US House of Representatives on Friday passed an amendment banning the US Department of Defense from creating, buying or displaying any map that shows Taiwan as part of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The “Honest Maps” amendment was approved in a voice vote on Friday as part of the Department of Defense Appropriations Act for the 2026 fiscal year. The amendment prohibits using any funds from the act to create, buy or display maps that show Taiwan, Kinmen, Matsu, Penghu, Wuciou (烏坵), Green Island (綠島) or Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) as part of the PRC. The act includes US$831.5 billion in
‘WORLD WAR III’: Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene said the aid would inflame tensions, but her amendment was rejected 421 votes against six The US House of Representatives on Friday passed the Department of Defense Appropriations Act for fiscal 2026, which includes US$500 million for Taiwan. The bill, which totals US$831.5 billion in discretionary spending, passed in a 221-209 vote. According to the bill, the funds for Taiwan would be administered by the US Defense Security Cooperation Agency and would remain available through Sept. 30, 2027, for the Taiwan Security Cooperation Initiative. The legislation authorizes the US Secretary of Defense, with the agreement of the US Secretary of State, to use the funds to assist Taiwan in procuring defense articles and services, and military training. Republican Representative
Taiwan is hosting the International Linguistics Olympiad (IOL) for the first time, welcoming more than 400 young linguists from 43 nations to National Taiwan University (NTU). Deputy Minister of Education Chu Chun-chang (朱俊彰) said at the opening ceremony yesterday that language passes down knowledge and culture, and influences the way humankind thinks and understands the world. Taiwan is a multicultural and multilingual nation, with Mandarin Chinese, Taiwanese, Hakka, 16 indigenous languages and Taiwan Sign Language all used, Chu said. In addition, Taiwan promotes multilingual education, emphasizes the cultural significance of languages and supports the international mother language movement, he said. Taiwan has long participated
The paramount chief of a volcanic island in Vanuatu yesterday said that he was “very impressed” by a UN court’s declaration that countries must tackle climate change. Vanuatu spearheaded the legal case at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands, which on Wednesday ruled that countries have a duty to protect against the threat of a warming planet. “I’m very impressed,” George Bumseng, the top chief of the Pacific archipelago’s island of Ambrym, told reporters in the capital, Port Vila. “We have been waiting for this decision for a long time because we have been victims of this climate change for