Word: lhasa
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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This lack of flexibility in spite of the looming Olympics is worrying, says Nicholas Bequelin, a China researcher with New York City-based Human Rights Watch. "Especially now with the Lhasa protests," he says, "they are facing a pressure-cooker period." Beijing will have to keep a lid on Tibet. But Beijing's problems are not confined to Tibet. There have also been rumblings of dissent in Xinjiang province, populated largely by the Uighur Muslim minority group. Protests by thousands of Uighurs, the Muslim ethnic group that speaks a Turkic language, over religious issues were reported by rights groups...
Indeed, if Beijing was caught flat-footed by the scale and scope of the Lhasa protests it has been equally unready to change its policies on the human rights front, despite knowing almost from the day the Games were awarded to Beijing in 2001 that hosting the Olympics would shine an increasingly bright spotlight on its dismal rights record. On April 3, activist Hu Jia was sentenced to three and a half years' imprisonment after being found guilty of "inciting subversion of state power." Prosecutors had advanced as evidence essays he wrote linking the staging of the Games with human...
...Indeed, if Beijing was caught flat-footed by the scale and scope of the Lhasa protests, it has been equally unready to change its policies on the human-rights front, despite knowing almost from the day the Games were awarded to Beijing in 2001 that hosting the Olympics would shine an increasingly bright spotlight on its dismal rights record. In fact, rights advocates inside and outside China say a string of recent convictions and the imprisoning of activists all over the country are just the latest in a yearlong, wide-ranging crackdown designed to stifle even the slightest sign...
...Even though Chinese authorities have had almost two decades to learn the lessons of Tiananmen Square - after which it spent time in the diplomatic doghouse - the events in Lhasa were almost a textbook example of how not to handle a crisis: dithering and indecision followed by the application of massive force. For almost two days, rioters met with little resistance from security officers, a sure sign of bureaucratic paralysis, according to Wenran Jiang, director of the China Institute at the University of Alberta. Requests for instructions were making their way torturously up the chain of command. Making matters worse, many...
...This lack of flexibility in spite of the looming Olympics is worrying, says Nicholas Bequelin, a China researcher with New York City-based Human Rights Watch. "Especially now with the Lhasa protests," he says, "they are facing a pressure-cooker period." Beijing will have to keep a lid on Tibet, where rights groups say there are still sporadic protests despite weeks of virtual military law. But Beijing's problems are not confined to Tibet. There have also been rumblings of dissent in the far-western Xinjiang province, populated largely by the Uighur Muslim minority group. Protests by thousands of Uighurs...