Word: bequelin
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Dates: during 2007-2007
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...Congress. The run-up to the party's biggest get-together is always a tense time, with security officials desperate to prevent any disruptions. But this meeting, at which the government sets policy goals and anoints a new generation of leaders, set China in a "deep freeze," says Nicholas Bequelin of New York-based Human Rights Watch. In the past, the freeze has always been followed by a thaw that saw detained activists released and a lightening of the heavy hand of control over the media and Internet. This time, though, Bequelin says, it could be different: "By trying...
...enforcement officers are a visible sign of their precautions; other preparations have been continuing for months. Previous Congresses had been preceded by a tightening of control on those whom the authorities consider troublemakers, but the "depth and thoroughness of the crackdown this time was unprecedented," according to Nicholas Bequelin of New York-based Human Rights Watch. Bequelin believes the months-long operation of intimidation, beating and occasional kidnapping of everyone from dissidents and public interest lawyers to housing rights activists and peasant petitioners reflects the government's unease about rising social unrest in the country. "Beijing may look peaceful...
...kidnapping - he says he has no idea who the men were, but they were almost certainly officials from one department or another of China's vast security apparatus - is the culmination of a crackdown ahead of the Congress that Nicholas Bequelin of New York-based Human Rights Watch says has put the country "into a deep freeze." A number of other activists have been harassed or detained, including Gao Zhisheng, a pioneering lawyer who had written an open letter calling for greater democracy in China and characterizing the upcoming Beijing 2008 Games as the "Handcuff Olympics." Petitioners have not only...
...other incidents ranged from violent demonstrations against forced abortions and police brutality to an anti-pollution protest that took place entirely online. All were fueled because of the Internet, and in particular the country's 20 million-strong bloggers. Says Bequelin, of the possibility for change in China: "The role of the Internet is the one aspect of the kiln story that made me optimistic...
...ability to counter the arbitrary power of the state. The party leadership recognizes that it must adapt to the changing attitudes or risk losing control. "There is room to maneuver and the party is willing to negotiate so long as there is no challenge to its authority," says Nicholas Bequelin, a China researcher for Human Rights Watch...