BEIJING |
(Reuters) - One of China's most prominent dissidents, Hu Jia, was reunited with his family in the early hours of Sunday after serving three-and-a-half-years in jail on subversion charges, but he was not ready to speak in public, his wife said.BEIJING
Hu was convicted in 2008 for "inciting subversion of state power" for criticizing human rights restrictions in China, and was seen by some supporters as a potential recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize before it went to another jailed Chinese dissident, Liu Xiaobo, last year.
"He is back home with his parents and me," his wife, Zeng Jingyan, told Reuters in a brief telephone interview.
"I don't know if he can speak later. At the moment, I want everything to be peaceful. I'm worried that doing interviews at this stage might cause problems. Please understand."
She and other rights activists have voiced concern in the past that Chinese authorities might impose restrictions on him amounting to a form of house arrest after his formal release.
Hu Jia's long-scheduled release followed this week's abrupt freeing from detention of the prominent artist and activist Ai Weiwei, and has come while Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is visiting Europe on trips to Hungary, Britain and Germany.
China's Communist Party has cracked down on dissent since February, responding to fears that uprisings across the Arab world could also trigger challenges to its one-party rule. Many dissidents detained in that drive have been ordered by authorities to stay publicly silent after their release.
Hu's wife, Zeng, a prominent activist in her own right, had posted on Twitter accounts messages describing harassment from authorities before his release.
She told Reuters in late May that she was worried by the trend of rights activists coming under informal house arrest after their release from formal detention or jail.
"When I see this, I'm worried, very worried, that when Hu Jia gets out something bad will happen," she said.
Hu and Zeng live in an apartment complex in east Beijing called Bobo Freedom City. There was a heavy presence of police officers and security guards in the area on Sunday morning.
Hu was detained in late 2007 and then tried and convicted the following year on the subversion charges that stemmed from criticism of the government he had made in Internet writings and interviews with foreign reporters.
China often uses the broad charge of "inciting subversion" to punish dissidents, and when Hu was convicted, state media said that he had bowed to the accusations against him.
Before he was jailed, Hu, 37, pursued an energetic career as an environmental protection campaigner, advocate for rural victims of AIDS, and vocal critic of China's restrictions on political dissent. Shaven-headed and wearing bookish spectacles, he was a familiar sight at activist gatherings in Beijing.
He is also a Buddhist who has criticised China's controls on that religion in Tibet and voiced sympathy for the Dalai Lama, the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader reviled by Beijing.
Sophie Richardson of Human Rights Watch, a New York-based advocacy group, said on Friday that "Hu Jia should never have been imprisoned in the first place," and she urged Beijing not to put him under informal house arrest.
"If that injustice is compounded by another form of detention it will show just how shallow the Chinese government's 'rule of law' commitments are," she said in an emailed statement ahead of Hu's release.
(Additional reporting by Michael Martina and Chris Buckley; Writing by Chris Buckley)
Sunday, 26 June 2011
Prominent China dissident Hu Jia freed from | Reuters
Home - Nest
Making Wales Cosy
Nest is the Welsh Government’s fuel poverty scheme. It aims to help reduce the number of households in fuel poverty and make Welsh homes warmer and more fuel-efficient places to live.
If you’re worried about the cost of heating your home, you can call 0800 512 012 free from a landline or 0300 456 2655 from a mobile phone. Our friendly advisors can give advice on:
- Saving energy
- Money management
- Making sure you’re on the best fuel tariff for you;
- And whether you are entitled to any benefits to boost your income
You may also be eligible to receive home improvements at no cost to you, to help make your home warmer and reduce the cost of your energy bills.
Nest support is available to everyone in Wales.
Nest events this month
- 11th June 2011 Aberystwyth and Ceredigion show, Aberystwyth
doc on health, technology, basketball, travel and living life - remember that anger can kill you
Like other strong emotions that can take years off your life, anger can literally kill you. Sudden cardiac arrest, when the heart stops circulating blood, may be caused in susceptible individuals by being stressed and engaging in an angry outburst. See the details in the current Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
Anger management classes anyone?
I’m just going to try to learn to relax myself!
GUATEMALA: Women-Only Buses Against Sexual Harassment - IPS ipsnews.net
GUATEMALA
Women-Only Buses Against Sexual Harassment
By Danilo Valladares
GUATEMALA CITY, Jun 24, 2011 (IPS) - "We are all safer here; it's great because this way there are no men groping you," Jaqueline Escobar, a sales executive, told IPS on a bus that is exclusively for women, a service against sexual harassment that is being tried out in the Guatemalan capital.Guatemala City's mass transit system, Transurbano, launched a pilot programme on Jun. 14 with dozens of buses identified with signs reading "For Women Only" and pink ribbons, which run between the city centre and neighbourhoods to the north and south.
The buses, which for now run from 6:00 to 7:30 am and 5:30 to 7:00 pm, can also be ridden by boys under 12, who along with the drivers are the only males allowed on.
In its first two weeks of operations, the new system has won over a large number of Guatemalan women. "It's a great idea; they should expand it beyond rush hour, make it available all day long, so all women can feel safe," Escobar added.
"Yes, obviously it's less risky for us," Alejandra Zabala, an administrative assistant who rides the Transurbano to commute to her job on the south side of the city, told IPS.
Sexual harassment has become a daily challenge for Guatemalan women who ride the bus.
More than one-third of the 1,500 complaints received annually by the Association of Urban and Suburban Transport Users of abuses against passengers involve sexual harassment of girls and women.
"Men grope them, treat them rudely, and rub up against them from behind," Edgard Guerra, president of the non-governmental association of bus system users and one of the driving forces behind the initiative, commented to IPS. "There have even been cases of rape. This is our concern, because our sisters, daughters and mothers ride the buses."
Spearheading the initiative was right-wing opposition congresswoman Zury Ríos, who asked the owners of buses to create women-only spaces, to keep them safe from harassment and aggression.
"It's been a success. I'm really happy that women feel safer and that with this decision, their human rights have begun to be respected," said the legislator, who is the daughter of former dictator Efraín Ríos Montt (1982-1983).
Congresswoman Ríos, who is known for taking up women's causes, said the Guatemala City system is based on the Mexico City model. She added that the idea is to also provide a women-only taxi service, with women drivers, similar to a system that is operating in the Mexican capital.
But sexual harassment is only one of the problems faced on buses in Guatemala. Drivers are frequent targets of robberies and extortion. At least 128 bus drivers were killed in this Central American country in 2010, many of them for refusing to make "protection" payments to organised crime groups, or during robberies, according to the Mutual Support Group (GAM), a local human rights organisation.
Passengers are also targeted in robberies on buses, which have become routine.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) reports that Guatemala is one of the most violent countries in the world, with a murder rate of 52 per 100,000 people, compared to the global average of nine per 100,000.
From 2006 to May 2011, a total of 1,201 people were killed on buses, including drivers, conductors, passengers, security guards and criminals, according to the ombudsperson's office.
In response to the growing violence, the government and the business community joined together to put the Transurbano system into operation in July 2010. The system was designed to improve safety by upgrading the fleet of vehicles, having passengers use prepaid cards, installing cameras, and posting security guards on buses.
So far, only 350 of the total fleet of 3,150 buses in Guatemala City have been replaced, and only new vehicles have been designated as women-only buses.
"I feel safer here," Verónica Ortega, holding her two-year-old son, told IPS as she rode home on one of the women-only buses.
"The problem is that off the bus, harassment is still an issue," Ana María Cofiño, with the La Cuerda feminist collective, told IPS, describing the buses as a "palliative" measure.
"Specific actions like this are taken, but violence in other areas like the workplace or the streets, or the fact that women are at risk of being raped at any time, are not addressed," she complained.
Cofiño said the Guatemalan state has the obligation to guarantee that women have the same access to opportunities as men, and to carry out awareness-raising campaigns on respect for women. "If the authorities did this, we would believe there was a more serious intention of bringing about change," she added.
Ana Silvia Monzón at the Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences (FLACSO) told IPS that the initiative makes sense as long as women continue to be harassed on public transport.
"I hope it's only temporary and that men's behaviour will improve, but for that to happen, other measures are needed as well," the expert added.
She underscored the importance of the 2004-2014 national plan for the prevention of intra-family violence and violence against women, which entails actions in different areas, such as education, health and the justice system.
As part of that plan, in 2008 Congress passed a law against "femicide" – gender-related murders – in this country of 14 million people, where 5,200 women were killed between 2000 and 2010 as a result of gender violence, according to police statistics.
Evelyn Morales, with Tierra Viva, a women's group based in Guatemala City, told IPS that it will take a major effort to curb harassment and violence against women. But the women-only buses "are a positive step, because most women experience being groped, harassed and sexually violated on urban and suburban buses," she said.
But not everyone is happy about the measure. "There aren't enough buses, and now half-empty buses carrying only women will go by," complained Víctor Guzmán, a factory employee.
The women only buses were big news, but their future is uncertain. Transurbano spokesman Sergio Vásquez told IPS that it is a pilot plan that will be assessed.
After the evaluation, the service could be expanded or replaced by women-only spaces on buses shared by women and men, he explained. Time will tell, but in the meantime, women are enjoying the new service. (END)
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