Is China, fearing a copycat phenomenon as popular uprisings sweep the Arab world, beginning a crackdown on advocates for human rights and religious freedom? China Aid reports that on Feb. 23 police in Yangdang, Hubei Province, raided a Christian legal center. They fired tear gas, assaulted those present and smashed the center’s equipment. And reports from China Human Rights Defender indicate that the whereabouts of several Chinese activists—last seen being hauled off by police in February—remains unknown. Accor-ding to Human Rights in China, anonymous “netizens” in mainland China, inspired by the “Flower Revolutions” in Tunisia and Egypt, broke through official Internet censorship to call for a “Jasmine Revolution” in 13 different cities. In response, H.R.I.C. reports, Chinese authorities “launched a concerted, large-scale crackdown on rights defense activists around the country, subjecting them to interrogation, house arrest and detention, with a severity rarely seen in the past few years.”
Beijing Clampdown?
Show Comments (
)
Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.
The latest from america
The 12 women whose feet were washed by Pope Francis included women from Italy, Bulgaria, Nigeria, Ukraine, Russia, Peru, Venezuela and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
"We, the members of the Society of Jesus, continue to be lifted up in prayer, in lament, in protest at the death and destruction that continue to reign in Gaza and other territories in Israel/Palestine, spilling over into the surrounding countries of the Middle East."
While some children have been evacuated from conflict, more than 1.1 million children in Gaza and 3.7 million in Haiti have been left behind to face the rampaging adult world around them.
Easter will not be postponed this year. It will not wait until the war is over. It is precisely now, in our darkest hour, that resurrection finds us.