The wife of an imprisoned Chinese activist said yesterday she was dragged off a bus to stop her from traveling to Beijing to speak out on his behalf.
Yuan Weijing (
Last week, Yuan was blocked by Chinese authorities from leaving for the Philippines, where she was to accept the Ramon Magsaysay Award, Asia's version of the Nobel Prize, on behalf of her husband, Chen Guangcheng (陳光誠).
Chen, 36, was sentenced to four years and three months in prison last year after he documented cases of forced abortions and other abuses by family planning officials in his native Shandong.
"I think the purpose of this was to prohibit me from speaking out," Yuan said by phone from her village of Dongshigu.
"Three men and one woman got on the bus and they dragged me to get me off the bus," Yuan said.
She said she was going to Beijing to highlight her husband's case and to seek legal help after her passport was taken away when she was trying to go to the Philippines.
She did not give details.
Yuan, 31, was taken back to her home early yesterday and said about six people were standing in front of her house and another four were blocking the entrance to the village.
She said she recognized the people who dragged her off the bus as being from her local government office.
A duty officer at the provincial police office, who refused to give his name, said he had not heard of the case.
The action against Yuan came the same day that a speech by her was read out at the Magsaysay awards ceremony in the Philippines accusing Beijing of violating human rights.
"In China, our government is often the biggest violator of people's rights," Yuan said in the speech.
"Because Guangcheng engaged in helping peasants safeguard their rights, he became the target of a retaliatory strike by some corrupt government officials," she said.
Yuan said her husband was convicted "based on trumped-up charges and a flawed trial process," in which villagers allegedly were kidnapped and tortured to testify against him.
Chen and a fellow Chinese, Chung To (
Chung was recognized for his AIDS Orphans Project, which provides children who have an AIDS-infected parent with school fees.
Each Magsaysay winner receives a gold medallion with an image of the former Philippine president for which the award is named plus US$50,000.
‘CROSSING THE LINE’: China’s embassy in Seoul criticized US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson, asking if his ‘hostile’ remarks were authorized by Washington South Korea and the US are in talks over recent public remarks by the commander of US Forces Korea, Seoul’s presidential office said yesterday, after the comments drew sharp criticism from China. In a recent podcast interview, US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson described South Korea as “the dagger in the heart of Asia” from China’s east coast, prompting the Chinese embassy in Seoul to say that he had “truly crossed the line.” The interview came amid growing speculation that Washington might seek to expand the role of US Forces Korea in countering the growing regional influence of China, a key
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
Australian researchers have trained lab-grown brain cells on a silicon computer chip to play the 1990s shooter game Doom and said they are just scratching the surface of what the neurons could be capable of doing. It is the science-fiction work of biotech boffins at Cortical Labs, who researched and developed the technology that harnesses the workings of the brain’s networking system. Each so-called “biological computer” contains about 200,000 living human brain cells, grown from stem cells that were harvested from blood donations. Having mastered the simple computer game Pong, where a paddle is moved up and down to send a ball
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
RSS