Word: dujiangyan
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...went back to Sichuan six months after the catastrophe and was amazed at the speed of physical and economic recovery. In Dujiangyan, the largest city in the quake zone, the rubble and tent cities had disappeared. The jumble of debris was replaced by piles of new bricks, lumber and other construction materials. There was a building boom across the region, and dozens of temporary villages were erected to house the 5 million people who were rendered homeless by the quake. The prefab housing was made out of blue aluminum siding lined with Styrofoam insulation. It had concrete floors...
...This wasn't a riot! These people were just disrupting society ... The government will solve their problems.' ZAO MING, an official from Dujiangyan, China's foreign-affairs office, after hundreds of grieving parents were dragged away by local police during their protest over the poorly constructed schools that collapsed in last month's earthquake, killing thousands of children...
...reality, though, is that the parents of Dujiangyan are unlikely to prevail. Sophie Richardson, a Human Rights Watch lawyer specializing in legal reform in China, says that the government has refused to renew the licenses of two prominent civil rights lawyers who offered to represent Tibetans in the wake of the violence in the Tibet Autonomous Region in March. "They don't allow politically sensitive cases to get anywhere," Richardson says. "I'd be very surprised if this turns out to be different." Liu Li says she just wants to know why her daughter's school turned into a death...
...This is standard procedure for China's public security bureau in sensitive situations. More telling was that another Children's Day celebration planned for a Dujiangyan primary school not far from Juyuan Middle School was canceled. As young girls and boys walked to the school's entrance before 8 a.m., they were greeted by a sign at the front gate that said because of concerns about the safety of parents and their children, festivities would not take place. Instead, those who showed up were given pamphlets explaining that hygiene was very important after an earthquake. Wu Xia, a mother...
...anger in Dujiangyan presents the Chinese government with a difficult balancing act. Authorities are sympathetic toward parents and are trying not to be too heavy handed. But officials are also plainly concerned that protests could get out of control. On Children's Day, there was a huge increase in the number of uniformed policemen in Dujiangyan. At the collapsed middle school, the police didn't prevent parents from gathering and talking to reporters. Uniformed and plainclothes security officials snapped photographs of parents who spoke to journalists...