Another ugly side of China

Posted on Wed, Aug. 20, 2008
Olympics buzz: Ugly side of China


Ugly side of China

Wu and Wang!

Two elderly Chinese women who applied to hold a protest during the Olympics were ordered to spend a year in a labor camp, a relative said Wednesday.

The women were officially notified they would have to serve a year-long term of “re-education” through labor and were under surveillance by a government-backed neighborhood group, said Li Xuehui, the son of one of the women.

Li said no cause was given for the order to imprison his 79-year-old mother, Wu Dianyuan, and her neighbor Wang Xiuying, 77.

“Wang Xiuying is almost blind and disabled. What sort of re-education through labor can she serve?” Li said. “But they can also be taken away at any time.”

The elderly women, Wu and Wang, make unlikely activists. Li said they have been fighting since being kicked out of their Beijing homes in 2001 to make way for redevelopment.

They complained to district officials, then to city authorities and finally demonstrated 16 times this year. After Beijing announced the Olympic protest zones, Wu and Wang applied repeatedly for a permit but failed to get one.

The re-education system, in place since 1957, allows police to sidestep the need for a criminal trial or a formal charge and directly send people to prison for up to four years to perform penal labor.

Chief remembers her when …

Chiefs safety Jarrad Page had a rooting interest in the women’s 100-meter hurdles race at the Olympics.

Page, who played at UCLA, was friends with gold-medal winner Dawn Harper when she was a member of the Bruins track team.

“We would talk all the time,” Page said of Harper. “We had a student center where all the athletes came in and did our papers, and I would see Dawn in there all the time. She was good friends with one of my best friends on the football team, and I knew her through that. I was happy for her.”

Back to school for Phelps’ mom

Debbie Phelps is almost as recognizable to viewers as her record-setting son.

But today, Debbie Phelps planned to return to a very different setting and a very different audience. She is the principal of Windsor Mill Middle School in Baltimore, and she needs to run two staff meetings and a leadership meeting.

“Then I’m going to be waiting for the weekend, because I’m going to crash during that time,” she said.

On Monday, more than 600 students return to her school.

“It’s going to be a huge change,” Debbie said.

Two elderly Chinese women headed to labor camp

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/21/china.humanrights

You probably won't see this on Bryan Williams.