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Co-editors: Seán Mac Mathúna • John Heathcote
Consulting editor: Themistocles Hoetis
Field Correspondent: Allen Houglande-mail: thefantompowa@fantompowa.org
The
Tibetan Government-in-exile An
Annotated Chronology of Tibet in the 20th Century
Bicycle
trip over the Himalayas Tibetan
Cultural Region Weblink Directory Within the Tibetan movement
many pay homage to the work and reputation of the Tibet
Information Network (TIN); an organisation which claims to
provide well researched factual material on matters relating
to Tibet and China. Since its arrival on the scene in 1989,
it has established an often influential role, and become a
valued source of information. Certainly, it offers a
detailed insight into the situation inside Tibet and has
brought to light many cases of political prisoners. Although
steadfastly denying any role as a campaigning body, its work
has greatly assisted others in the Tibetan scene, and
improved the flow and quality of information. Credit for
this achievement is often directed towards founder Mr Robert
Barnett, and there is no doubting his efforts. But little is
mentioned of the role played by Tibetans themselves.
Not only the Tibetan Government in exile, which many believe
were instrumental in helping to establish TIN, but those
forgotten heroes inside Tibet who have taken a genuine and
dangerous risk to obtain, verify and transmit information.
Without their efforts a major element of TIN would cease to
function, and it is they who truly deserve our applause and
admiration. It is their patriotism and courage which has
furnished TIN with a wealth of information and thus helped
earn its standing. Having crafted a standing for
accuracy, independence, and quality, some consider that TIN
has acquired an almost iconic status within the Tibetan
movement (beyond critique and examination to some of its
adoring fans). Indeed to speak out against it runs the risk
of being charged with a form of blasphemy, a gross insult
towards a true friend of Tibet. Yet there remains one issue
upon which its record is abysmal and that is human rights
violations within Communist China's population programme.
Since its inception, under the stewardship of Barnett, it
maintained a careful policy of glossing-over, marginalising
or ignoring the more odious aspects of the programme (see
Tibet: Defying the Dragon March 1991 page 89). Under the
guise of journalistic standards, and with a implacable
cynicism reserved only it seems for this issue, it mirrored
official Communist Chinese arguments by claiming that the
one-child policy: "covers only 'nationalities' in China
which has more than 10 million members ..So officially
Tibetans are exempt from this policy" (TIN correspondence to
Optimus, 29th November 1993). The same letter also suggested
"..there are no first hand accounts of forcible (in the
sense of physical force) abortions and sterilisations". The
TIN correspondent went on to dismiss the testimony of
Tibetan women as "very imprecise" or "vague". Others too
joined the chorus of denial, deception and propaganda. Ms
Kate Saunders, later to become an active member of TIN,
wrote in the October 1992 edition of Tibet News (newsletter
of the TSG&endash;UK) "There are few first-hand accounts of
forced abortions and sterilisations from Tibetan women"
adding that "..it is not clear to what extent local
authorities act on the directives from Beijing…". This
baseless assertion was in stark contrast to the findings of
Dr John S Aird former China specialist at the US Bureau of
the Census and author of 'Slaughter of the Innocents', whose
researches, using official communist Chinese sources,
calculated that between 1971 and 1985 ALONE there had been
some 100 million coercive 'birth-control surgeries'
including forced sterilisations and forced
abortions. It is difficult to imagine how
this staggering scale of operation could exist without the
knowledge, involvement and ultimate sanction of Beijing, any
more than the concentration camps could have existed without
Hitler's knowledge. Thanks to the efforts of
Independent Tibet Network, Optimus and Dr John S Aird, there
is no longer any doubt over the brutal nature of the
Communist Chinese programme and the trauma and violations it
inflicts upon women (The British Medical Association,
Amnesty International, US State Department and British
Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs have now
recognised and condemned human rights violations associated
with the programme). The dismissive and misleading arguments
used to deny coercion were reduced to ashes by the facts and
detail documented in reports such as 'Slaughter of the
Innocents' by Dr John Aird (AEI Press 1991), 'Children of
Despair' by Martin Moss & Paul Ingram (Independent Tibet
Network/Optimus 1992) and more recently 'Orders of the
State' by Jeffrey Bowe & Martin Moss (Independent Tibet
Network 2000). Yet there still remains a
determined and orchestrated effort to suppress and distort
open debate on this subject, and some suspect the cancerous
tentacles of the British Foreign Office have been silently
extended to prevent exposure of what is a highly sensitive
issue, and one that could cause a considerable deterioration
in relations between London and Beijing. Could such
influences have taken root within TIN's administration?
There has been speculation surrounding its rapid elevation
and the late Tsering Wangyal, former editor of the Tibetan
Review, commented in 1990 that there "was a lot of money
sloshing around the Tibetan scene". Notwithstanding such
conjecture although the merciless scepticism it previously
demonstrated may have softened, its general coverage remains
characterised by tentative and extenuating terminology. The
following featured in a TIN Bulletin February
2000: Once again we have the
old TIN mantra in deliberately vague and euphemistic form
(worthy of communist China's State Family Planning
Committee), the message though is clear. The
responsibility for "excessive enforcement" lies with
local officials not with the central communist regime and
that these are defined as financial penalties and
"administrative structures".The obscure terminology masks
widely documented penalties of arbitrary arrest,
detention, forced sterilisation and/or forced abortions.
Compare this with a quote from Defying the Dragon by
Barnett "In areas where a birth-control policy has been
announced the principal method of enforcement appears to
be a range of serious administrative penalties" (emphasis
added). Such cynical resistance to acknowledge the brutal
reality of the population programme was in stark contrast
to the concerns of the Dalai Lama who, responding to
questions from Paul Ingram and the author at UK
Parliamentary meetings (1996 and 1993 respectively),
described the situation as "very serious" and that
matters were "getting worse". During an audience with His
Holiness, which I had the honour of attending, this subject
was raised, and it was agreed that it demanded far greater
exposure. Yet despite the often stated concerns of Tibet's
Head of State about abuses resulting from the population
programme, TIN's long tradition of fudging this issue
remains intact. Indeed one wonders had this organisation
operated during World-War-Two how they would have described
eugenic and birth-control 'experiments' inflicted upon Gypsy
and Jewish women. Presumably it would not have been Himmler
who was responsible for the medical atrocities but
over-zealous local Nazi officials! A specious defence was once
offered by a former TIN member who claimed, during a
conversation with the author, that careful reportage and
phrasing was essential for maintaining credibility and that
a cautious approach were the hallmarks of sensible
journalism. Well a couple of points came to mind. The truth
that Tibetan women are being forcibly sterilised is, it
seems, too sensational for TIN, which explains the limited
detailed references to such abuses in its literature.
Secondly this claim dismisses passionate, forceful and
truthful journalism as being inherently flawed (and by
implication thus unworthy of TIN). This is not the case of
course as so eloquently demonstrated by Irish reporter
Maggie O' Kane's award-winning coverage of the conflict in
Bosnia and Kosovo. She and other writers have shown that
compassion and emotion have a role in journalism, and need
not detract from aspects of balance or fact. One only has to
recall the coverage given to the mass rape of Muslim women
in Bosnia. Had TIN been reporting this tragedy would the
testimonies of rape have been dismissed with the callous
suspicion they seem to reserve for the accounts of Tibetan
women? Reading TIN material on this
issue, which in most cases seems to originate from the
offices of Xinhua (communist China's propaganda outlet), one
inevitably compares the aspirations and motivation of
Tibetans supplying information with this stunted coverage.
One cannot help feel a witness to an unwholesome betrayal of
the facts, as the abuses inflicted upon Tibetans and others
is diluted and marginalized into a form that conceals the
brutal nature of the population programme. The following
extract taken from a TIN report (February 2000) illustrates
the point: Now, according to this,
'enforcement' appears limited to financial penalties or
bureaucratic measures, of course this Beijing-style
propaganda is in violent contradiction to penalties as
experienced and widely documented by women in East
Turkestan, Tibet and communist China. These reports,
containing a wealth of detailed information, are readily
available and have been featured by Amnesty International,
Independent Tibet Network, Optimus and Asia Watch. Accounts
have appeared in the written and broadcast media too which,
unlike TIN, have not been afraid to report freely and
forcefully on medical atrocities and violations resulting
from this programme. One only has to recall the BBC
Television documentary 'Women of the Yellow Earth' (24th
July 1994) which featured a young Chinese named Bai, whose
family and home were threatened by family planning official
for weeks before she 'agreed' to attend a local clinic,
where she was tied onto a medical slab and sterilised. In
pain and crying for anaesthetic she was told to "put up with
it", by the surgeon, traumatised and in obvious agony, she
was left in a grimy dormitory, before being left to make her
way back across the mountain to her village. These disturbing images were
eclipsed by the acclaimed documentaries 'The Dying Rooms'
and 'Return to the Dying Rooms' (British Channel 4
television 1995) both of which recorded the inhuman
treatment of orphaned baby girls, left to die in state
controlled orphanages, as a result of the one-child-policy
and the traditional preference for boys. The misery and
suffering recorded in all these films resulted in public
outrage across Europe and the US, and intense public debate
in the British media. The intensely harrowing scenes exposed
the coercive nature of communist China's population
policies, and supports the evidence, that continues to
emerge, which documents a series of draconian measures
inflicted upon women including financial penalties,
arbitrary arrest, detention, emotional, social and physical
coercion, and forced sterilisations and forced abortions.
Yet the TIN extract (February 2000), below unquestioningly
repeats communist propaganda and suggests that far from
being abused and coerced, Tibetan women are simply
'volunteering' for sterilisation as a result of rewards
offered: As a premier source of
information, TIN has access to the same testimony and
evidence as other organisations with an interest in Tibet so
why does it demonstrate such reticence in featuring detailed
testimonies which describe the actual nature of coercion and
associated human rights violations? It cannot claim with any
credibility, that to do so would jeopardise its journalistic
credentials, as far more respected established media outlets
such as the Washington Post, Boston Globe, The Observer, The
Independent, Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail have no problem
in exposing and describing the more odious aspects of the
programme. Furthermore, in the interests of balance and
impartiality, one imagines TIN would wish to give equally
detailed and prominent coverage to eyewitness/personal
testimony. Yet, apart from some isolated interviews recorded
in 1990, it is hard to locate comprehensive references to
the atrocities caused by the population policies. One is
always left with the impression of reading an amended
script, perhaps remodelled beyond the requirements of
standard editing? I too have met and interviewed Tibetan
women who have witnessed and experienced the horrors of
'birth-control' surgery and noted the amount of detail,
consistency and facts in their accounts. I have no reason to
doubt their sincerity and honesty nor the obvious trauma
which has blighted their lives. Some committed suicide. TIN
has also questioned such women, therefore it is difficult to
grasp why their experiences are reported in the truncated
and adulterated form that they are. Can it be possible that this
organisation is actively watering-down accounts by expunging
any reference to forced sterilisations and forced abortions?
Perhaps, as speculated earlier, it is due to the perfidious
influence of the British Foreign Office? Whatever the reason
we are witnessing a concealment of the facts, hardly
befitting a group dedicated to providing "accurate and
objective" information. Having "sought the truth in the
groves of academe" it seems TIN has resorted to the ultimate
form of censorship, by deleting any detailed reference to
violations resulting from the population
programme. A further spurious excuse used
to justify the manner in which TIN reports this issue is
that it is not a campaigning body, and therefore is required
to adopt a 'neutral' position. Well how balanced is it to
fill output on this subject with official propaganda, which
by its very nature offers a grossly single&endash;sided and
duplicitous perspective? The following exemplifies how TIN's
heavy reliance upon communist Chinese sources leaves them
open to the charge of being unwitting partners in a
deliberate attempt to deceive foreigners, concerning the
coercive nature of China's population programme. At first glance this appears a
routine account of events but wait a moment what about these
'circulars'? When and why were they issued? New York Times
writer, Elizabeth Rosenthal was, it seems, deceived by this
Chinese official and invested considerable importance in her
article (Ist November 1998) to the supposed assurances given
by State Family Planning Committee spokeswoman, Cong Jun. In
fact the regulations prohibiting coercion, mentioned by
Rosenthal and TIN, have not been published in the recent
Chinese media and no reference to them has appeared in
provincial level family planning documents which usually
reflect any amendments to national policies on population
policies. So what is going on? More importantly, close
examination of the Xinhua dispatches, quoted by Rosenthal,
TIN and others, reveals they have either been inadvertently
or deliberately misled. The statements by Cong were carried
by TWO Xinhua releases (dated 29th October 1998), one of
these, and presumably the version used by TIN, and other
foreign writers was an English language version released in
Beijing quoted Cong as follows: This statement creates an
impression that the "circulars" were recently issued.
However, the other Xinhua dispatch, published in Chinese
from Hong Kong, made it clear that this was not so and
quoted Cong Jun as stating: The key phrase "long ago,"
expunged from the English version, indicates that the
reference was probably either to the Party Central Committee
"open letter" of September 25, 1980 or to the unpublished
Party Central Committee Document No. 7 of April 12, 1984, or
perhaps both. The open correspondence of 1980 cautioned
against coercion and was issued following an adverse
reaction against the grim realities of the initial year of
the one-child policy in 1979, while Document No. 7 was
seemingly released in response to a popular backlash which
resulted from the extensive birth-control surgeries carried
in 1983, but were superseded and effectively reversed by
ensuing policy documents which took a far more draconian
line. Cong Jun's original address was
made to a Sino-European seminar on women's issues, and
therefore was aimed mainly at a foreign audience. It was not
quoted in the Chinese domestic media outside of Hong Kong.
Her speech may have been a deliberate response to the
damaging testimony on coercion in family planning in Fujian
Province presented by Ms. Gao Xiaoduan before the U. S.
Congressional committee on June 10, 1998. The point of all this is that
communist China manipulates its foreign audience to believe
that they prohibit coercive measures, but they assiduously
make such claims only in channels not likely to be noted by
family planning officials in China, whose coercive excesses
they obviously do not wish to discourage. It appears that in
publishing this misleading statement, TIN is guilty of
assisting Xinhua in that end, which raises serious questions
about its uncritical acceptance of official communist
sources that undermine its objective to "provide an
accurate, impartial and comprehensive news and information
service". As recognised experts in their
field, surely TIN would be aware that if the communist
authorities were serious about placing a check upon
coercion, they would issue recurrent orders against it in
their annual national report sessions of family planning,
and they would see to it that warnings against coercion and
penalties for local officials guilty of using coercion would
be incorporated into the latest versions of the provincial
family planning regulations. According to Dr John S Aird,
not one of these regulations contains a word about coercion.
The obvious explanation is that coercion is a necessary and
intended aspect of program implementation in communist
China. Meanwhile, central family
planning policy documents continue to call for the use of
"administrative measures," the Chinese euphemism for the use
of local administrative powers, to enforce compliance. For
years the central authorities have hinted broadly, that
coercive measures were needed, and even in some of the most
recent central statements about family planning, it is
acknowledged that the program is not voluntary and that any
easing of pressures would result in a rebound in the birth
rate. This information is available to any serious
researcher, as it is presumably for TIN, so why feature an
account which sought to create the impression that the
communist regime's family planning committee were taking
positive action to curb coercion? Seen in isolation this could be
attributed to administrative oversight and sloppy research.
However taken in context with the general softly-softly tone
TIN employs when reporting on issues linked to communist
China's population programme, one may be forced to come to a
darker conclusion. The degree to which this issue
is obscured is brought into sharp relief when compared with
TIN's reportage of political prisoners. Their smoke-screen
of balance and journalistic caution, which has stifled a
full exposé of the abuses resulting from communist
China's population policies no longer seems to apply.
Subscribers are offered harrowing details of systematic
torture. The following account from a Tibetan nun is taken
from it's website: The criticism here is not
directed at the quality, tone or use of such testimony,
which has greatly served those engaged in human rights and
Tibet, but towards what appear conditional standards applied
by TIN. Unlike reports from political prisoners, personal
and eyewitness accounts given by Tibetan women, would seem
to require textual revision, removing any unpleasant
realities, and concealing the odious nature of the
population programme in euphemism and extenuating
terminology. Has this respected organisation
been engaged in a deliberate and consistent campaign to
camouflage the actual nature and extent of coercion within
the communist Chinese population programme? Does the spectre
of Foreign Office influence hold true? Certainly there have
been many instances which indicate that something is going
on; the International Consultation on Tibet (1990),
International Lawyers Conference (1993) UK Foreign Affairs
Committee (1993) and International Development Committee
(1999) either ignored or gave virtually no coverage of this
issue in their published reports. They also withheld any
reference to the detailed material supplied to them by
Independent Tibet Network and Optimus; including the
acclaimed document Children of Despair. Why does TIN follow
this lead? If, as it claims, it is wholly independent why
does it adopt a similar position on this issue and employ
syntax of such striking similarity? Others have expressed their
dismay at the censorship surrounding this subject, Ms Carol
Devine, author of Tibetan Women and the Struggle for an
Independent Tibet noted "In my lobbying for Tibet's freedom
and Tibetan women's rights, I have found so many people
unwilling to say that issues of forced abortion and
sterilization should be at the top of the list when speaking
of human rights abuses in Tibet" (correspondence 5th October
1993 to Independent Tibet Network) Devine's book could have proved
a valuable asset to an understanding of conditions facing
Tibetan women however it was seriously undermined by a
deficient chapter entitled 'The Quality Baby'. In
researching this chapter she had, significantly as it turned
out, sought the advice of Robert Barnett (then director of
TIN) who it seems had assured her that "credibility and
professionalism" were the hallmarks of his organisation. The
result however was a confusing, misleading and flawed
analysis which contained a textual error on page 68 that
"..the evidence does NOT support the very serious claims of
coercive abortions and sterilisations.." She later admitted
that this should have read "..the evidence DOES support the
very serious claims of forced abortions and
sterilisations..". In a letter (5th October 1993) to Optimus
and Independent Tibet Network Devine wrote, "I sincerely
wish I had been more outspoken, and convincing in this
chapter". Quite so, but one wonders if
this was ever possible once she had engaged with an
organisation that had consistently glossed-over the haunting
testimony of women traumatised by 'birth-control surgery'.
This section of her book certainly generated much confusion,
and I know of many independent researchers who could make no
sense of it. Whatever the truth, TIN remains
an authoritative source of information to the Tibetan
movement, and exerts much influence upon how various issues
are reported. It is therefore not surprising to note that
organisations such as the Australia Tibet Council, Free
Tibet Campaign, and others exhibit a similar tendency to
obscure the facts. Such diffusion, along with a general
inactivity on this issue, has no doubt cost lives and
resulted in other groups and individuals taking no action.
One only has to recall the international gatherings of Tibet
supporters, during which every aspect of the Tibetan issue
was recounted in detail, APART from the subject of coercive
birth control, which has been consistently ignored. In
diluting and overlooking the true nature and extent of
medical atrocities resulting from the population programme
TIN is guilty of complicity. It is supposed to be helping
the very Tibetan women whose lives have been blighted and
wrecked by the communist China. How much human misery would
have been avoided if TIN had rectified its blinkered
coverage? Meanwhile the atrocities
continue. According to a report (The Times 24th August 2000)
from Hubei Province in August last year, a pregnant woman
identified as Mrs Liu was forcibly given a saline injection
by her local family planning officials in an attempt to
bring on an abortion and kill the child But, surprisingly,
it was born alive and healthy. The officials then ordered
the father to take the baby out of the hospital and kill it,
but though he was afraid of punishment, he merely left the
baby behind an office building, where a doctor found it, and
returned it to its mother. The infant was given its
inoculations and discharged. When the couple got home with
their new baby, they found five family planning officials
waiting for them in their living room. A struggle arose in which
the officials wrested the child from its parents, took it
out into a paddy field, and drowned it in sight of the
parents, and their neighbours. The action so enraged people
in the community that they brought the story to the
attention of provincial newspapers, and from there it got
into the foreign press as well, embarrassing the central
government. On 12th February 2001 Amnesty
International issued a new report entitled "Torture: A
growing scourge in China--Time for Action" declaring that
torture is increasing in China. Among many examples cited,
was a 1998 incident, in which a peasant from a village in
Changsha, Hunan Province, whose wife was suspected of having
fled because she was pregnant, was tortured twice. On the
second occasion he was Episodes of this sort are
doubtless the most staggering examples of coercion, which
reach international attention, because they generate such
local outrage that they find their way into Chinese regional
newspapers, and thus into the foreign press. Other
atrocities lay hidden, until the victim escapes. Independent
Tibet Network had an interview with a 37 year-old woman from
Kham in East Tibet, following her flight into exile to
India. She was another victim of the population programme,
"I was taken by force by the Chinese and sterilised, having
gone beyond the stated limit of children. Nearly 30 women
were also sterilised at the same time as me, in my village
70% of woman at 18 have been sterilised. They treat us like
animals and use many crude methods, my husband's sister was
sterilised before his very eyes. She was four months
pregnant and had been taken to the centre by force. They
tied her hands and legs while the doctor, wearing gloves,
put his hand into the vagina and squeezed the foetus. She
was delirious and bled profusely for sometime". Other women,
details the testimony ".. had an injection given in the
stomach, the women cry and later deliver a dead foetus"
Alternative forms of 'surgery' used more brutal methods
"While operating they cut the stomach vertically and
horizontally often without anaesthetic and with little
consideration for the pain that is being inflicted. I have
witnessed these terrible things with my own
eyes". According to the testimony,
birth-control officers would visit the villages once a month
and take down names of all those who were to be sterilised,
any that showed resistance were taken by force. The staff
carrying out such 'surgery' were, it was claimed, often
unqualified and showed little concern for the well-being of
the women. The witness reported highly detailed instances of
women, almost nine months pregnant, being "given medicine to
induce labour and afterwards the premature infant is put
into a bucket of hot water". Such accounts have surfaced
time and again from East Turkestan, Tibet, Inner Mongolia,
and China itself. More routine cases of coercion
probably do not get reported in the media, especially with
the Chinese authorities doing what they can to suppress such
reports. Groups such as TIN, Free Tibet Campaign and
Australia Tibet Council seem willing partners in the effort
to conceal the truth. In light of the censorship surrounding
this issue the words of TIN's current director, Richard
Oppenheimer appear somewhat tainted: "The world needs to
know what is happening in Tibet today. Tibet Information
Network (TIN) is dedicated to giving the world the facts -
accurately and objectively… ". (emphasis
added) At a national meeting convened
by the Party Central Committee in March 1999, Jiang Zemin
said: The euphemism "administrative
measures," includes mandatory IUD insertions,
sterilisations, and abortions, suggest that, for the
foreseeable future, at least, communist China's population
programme will remain as coercive as it has been since its
inception. According to Dr John S Aird the abuses look set
to continue: The prospects for women in
occupied Tibet, East Turkestan and China itself look bleak
as they continue to be at the knife-edge of family planning
policies that inflict the most appalling violations. Some of
these have endured the darkest trauma, yet had the courage
to report their suffering to organisations such as TIN,
presumably in the hope that the brutal reality of communist
China's population programme would be brought to a wider
audience. Little did they realise that not only would their
testimony be subjected to merciless scepticism and
censorship but that their trust and hope could be betrayed
by an organisation supposedly dedicated to reporting
truthfully on conditions inside their country. Jeffrey Bowe "Torture: A growing scourge
in China--Time for Action" Amnesty International (12th
February 2001) Thanks to Dr John Aird, Optimus
and Ms Denise Foley PREVIOUS ISSUES | WEB LINKS PAGE | READER'S COMMENTS | BACK TO FLAME ARCHIVE HOME |INDEX OF ISSUES 1-10
Denial and Deceit
Smokescreens and
Censorship
"Cadres in local
areas are judged by their success in enforcing population
targets, and it is the punishments and rewards associated
with the limits they impose that are most likely to lead
to excessive enforcement. According to reports received
by TIN, a considerable element of coercion is applied to
women, particularly in rural areas, through the
mechanisms of fines and administrative structures
introduced by these officials. (emphasis
added)
Mum's the Word!
"Enforcement
measures include a combination of economic sanctions, in
the form of 'extra birth fees' for those who transgress
the limit and administrative penalties, such as the
denial of birth certificates for any additional child
born outside the quota". (emphasis added)
"The 1992 TAR
birth control regulations stipulate that women who "adopt
corrective measures", or undergo sterilisation and women
who have "induced births in the mid-term of their
pregnancy" (officially sanctioned abortions) are to be
given a set time off work determined by which of the
operations they have. The women who have the operation
are rewarded with a supply of "10 jin [5kg]" of
flour (glutinous rice) and two jin [1kg] of
edible (butter) oil", according to the
regulations."
Excusing the
Dragon
"Although the
Chinese authorities generally deny the use of coercion in
imposing birth-control restrictions, a rare admission was
made by a Chinese official…Cong Jun said in a
speech.. on 29th October 1998 that the State Family
Planning Committee had issued circulars throughout the
country to prohibit its branch organisations from forcing
women to undergo abortions or sterilisations…." (TIN
Report February 2000)
"The State Family
Planning Committee has issued circulars throughout the
country to prohibit its branch organizations at all
levels from forcing women to undergo abortions or
sterilization..".
"The Chinese
Government long ago issued circulars throughout the
country specifically prohibiting family planning
departments at all levels from forcing women to undergo
induced abortions or sterilization.". (emphasis
added).
Betraying the
Truth
Double Standards
"They beat us so
savagely that there was blood everywhere, on the walls
and on the floor. It looked like an abattoir. They beat
us with their belts, until their belts broke ... then
they used electric batons ... Some of us had torn ears,
others had wounds in their heads. There was so much
blood."
TIN (Tibetan Infants
Nil)
Coercion: the
Reality
"...denied food,
hung upside down, whipped and beaten with wooden clubs
and burned with cigarette butts. He reportedly became
doubly incontinent, his body covered in excrement. The
officials reportedly then branded his lower body with
soldering irons, tied wire around his genitals and ripped
off his penis." (The man died on 15 May 1998)
Dark Horizon
"Family Planning
and population control constitute arduous work involving
many aspects. Instead of putting a brake on the work, we
must strengthen it. We should further improve our
population macro-control, family planning management...
Education, legal, economic, and administrative measures
should be adopted."
"In sum, the
evidence throughout the 1990s and up to the present
moment is that the central authorities are determined to
tighten their control over family planning work to
maintain China's current low birth rate. They have made
it clear that these efforts are to continue even in the
21st century. Coercive measures are to be refined and
"perfected" but not relaxed. In fact, they seem to be
assuming more extreme forms"
Independent
Tibet NetworkBibliography:
Briefing Paper on Communist China's Coercive Population
Control Programme www.truthtibet.com/ (2000)
Orders of the State, Jeffrey Bowe & Martin Moss,
Independent Tibet Network (2000)
Increased restrictions on birth of children in Tibet
TIN report (9 February 2000)
New birth control policies to 'help families become
richer ' TIN Report (9 February 2000)
Human rights Report: China, US State Department (25th
February 2000)
Gender and Catastrophe, Edited by Ronit Lentin, Zed
Books (1997)
Human Rights and Family Planning in China, Dr John S
Aird, Joint Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs
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