China intensifies crackdowns before Olympics

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For years, the Zhou brothers of Beijing sold their pirated DVDs openly from a back room in a state-owned department store. Like other merchants of counterfeit goods, they knew the authorities would turn a blind eye.But a few months ago, they made a huge mistake. On the television set in their shop, they began playing a U.S. documentary film about China's modern history, including several scenes of Chinese troops killing student protesters at Tiananmen Square in June, 1989.Within weeks, the police raided the store and hauled away the two brothers for interrogation for selling a "reactionary" film. This spring, one of the brothers was sentenced to a year in prison, even while most other illegal DVD merchants remained in business as usual.In this Olympic year in Beijing, human rights are taking a hammering. Security sweeps and police crackdowns are hitting a wide range of targets -- not just dissidents but whole new classes of ordinary people, from street retailers to ethnic minorities, from beggars to patients-rights advocates.When they were lobbying for the right to hold the Olympics, Chinese leaders promised that human rights would improve if they were awarded the Games. Instead, they have rolled back the clock this year, limiting freedoms and tightening their repression of ordinary citizens across the city.Street vendors, mobile snack hawkers, beggars and homeless people are being pushed off the streets in a massive "social cleansing" operation. Recently, a group of policemen used wire-cutters to remove and confiscate the parked bicycle-cart of a man who collected scrap metal for recycling. The vendors who give a sense of character to Beijing's neighborhoods are being swept away in the crackdown.Several English-language magazines have been banned from Beijing in recent weeks, even when their content is innocuous. The latest example is Time Out Beijing, a monthly entertainment guide, whose June issue has been banned by Chinese censors for unexplained reasons.Ethnic minorities, especially Tibetans and Uyghurs, are among those suffering restrictions in China's security crackdown during the lead-up to the Olympics. The Uyghurs, a Muslim people from the Xinjiang region of western China, are increasingly seen as a security threat. Many hotels in Beijing are refusing to rent rooms to Uyghurs, while police are ordering some Muslim restaurants not to hire any Uyghurs, according to research by human-rights advocates.The researchers, led by well-known rights activist Wan Yanhai, conducted a survey of 20 hotels in Beijing last month and found that 60 percent would not permit Xinjiang Uyghurs to check in, even when many rooms were available. Even at hotels that allowed Uyghurs to take rooms, the staff often warned them to be ready for police inspections."This discrimination against Uyghurs is a violation of the guarantees of equal rights in China's constitution and law," Wan said. "In the Chinese big family, we should respect and protect the minorities among us. The Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee should educate people ahead of the Olympics to respect minorities and create an atmosphere of unity and equality in society."Meanwhile, the Chinese authorities are escalating their pressure on dissidents, activists, lawyers and journalists. Many have been imprisoned, placed under house arrest or barred from working.After weeks of relative freedom for journalists covering the Sichuan earthquake, China has imposed new controls on foreign and domestic journalists in the earthquake zone."Any hope of seeing China calmly open up ahead of the Olympic Games is gradually vanishing," said a report by Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based group defending press freedom.It noted that China has announced a new series of restrictions on foreigners visiting Beijing during the Olympics, along with new controls on Chinese citizens working for foreign reporters. "These measures, just two months ahead of the inauguration of the Beijing games, are bordering on paranoia and are a long way from the One World, One Dream slogan," the group said.The restrictions could become even more intensive on Aug. 8, when the Olympics begin. Beijing is mobilizing about 100,000 police officers and 600,000 volunteers to patrol hotels, streets and Olympic venues, more than one person for every foreign visitor expected to arrive in the city during the Olympics.(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)