fotos Snaphanen
Trykkefrihedsselskabet: Ytringsfriheden i Kina, 4 november, Vartov, København
(tilmelding, senest 29. oktober)
Berlin 1936 – Beijing 2008
I 1936 kunne Adolf Hitler sole sig i verdens opmærksomhed under De Olympiske Lege i Berlin, mens offentligheden glemte alt om kz-lejre, jødeforfølgelser, tortur og undertrykkelse. Nu er turen kommet til Kinas kommunistiske ledere, der glæder sig til at fremvise deres økonomisk fremgangsrige og mægtige land for verdenspressen under næste års Olympiske Lege. Derimod hører vi stadigt mindre om bagsiden af det kinesiske mirakel.
Historien om kvindearbejdslejren i Xinan, hvor tilhængere af den religiøse sekt Falun Gong udsættes for en så rædselsvækkende behandling, at man skal til de nazistiske og stalinistiske kz-lejre for at finde fortilfælde.
Hvor politiet benytter sig af “de frygteligste og ondeste torturmetoder, som vi kender på denne planet” – for at citere den tidligere fange Zeng Zheng, som siden har ændret sig navn til Jennifer Zeng. Hun blev arresteret i oktober 2000, efter at internet-politiet havde afsløret hende som Falun Gong-tilhænger.
Hvor fangerne – ligesom deres lidelsesfæller i talløse andre kz-lejre med hundredtusinder af indsatte – bliver torteret til døde eller til menneskelige vrag.
Ikke fordi de har begået nogen forbrydelse, men fordi de mener noget andet end Kinas kommunistiske diktatur.
“Jeg var engang vidne til, at en kvindelig Falun Gong-fange blev torteret fire dage og fire nætter i ét stræk. Til sidst brød hun mentalt sammen, og det var det mest rædselsvækkende. Pludselig blev en engel til en djævel. En normal, menneskekærlig person var blevet torteret til sindssyge,” beretter Jennifer Zeng.
Og det er netop meningen med de kinesiske torturlejre, som Jennifer Zeng betegner som endnu skrækkeligere end de nazistiske. De kinesiske kommunister er nemlig ikke tilfredse med at udrydde eller tortere deres modstandere. De vil “transformere” dem. Få dem til at afsværge deres gamle meninger, tilslutte sig regimets propaganda og selv deltage i torturen af de medfanger, der endnu ikke er blevet “transformeret”.
Jennifer Zeng har skildret sine oplevelser i bogen “Witnessing History: One Woman’s Fight for Freedom and Falun Gong”, der er blevet sammenlignet med Alexander Solsjenitsyns værk “Gulag Øhavet”. Hun har nu politisk asyl i Australien.
Søndag den 4. november er hun blandt talerne ved Trykkefrihedsselskabets konference om ytringsfriheden i Kina. Den finder sted på Vartov i København.
Læs hvordan du kan tilmelde dig på http://www.trykkefrihed.dk/ eller http://www.sappho.dk/
For mere information, kontakt Trykkefrihedsselskabets næstformand Katrine Winkel Holm (36 44 88 41) eller formand Lars Hedegaard (36 46 15 48).
Forfatter Zeng Zheng: ”From at prisoner to a writer”
Prof. Stig Thøgersen: ”Political and academic debates in China: Where are…”
Chefred. Lea Zhou: “Media censorship in the Chinese Press and the Olympic Games”
J. Lagerkvist, Utrikespolitiska Institutet. Lund: “Free speech on the internet in China”
Menneskeretsekspert Thomas Gua: ”The conditions of Free Speech in China”
‘We must act now to cut immigrant numbers’
By Sir Andrew Green
Immigration set to increase Britain’s population by a third
White flight
DUBLIN, Ireland: A government-commissioned report Friday into the impact of heavy immigration on Dublin’s schools documented what it called a dramatic pattern of “white flight” from part of the capital city.
The study, titled “Inclusive Education, Primary Challenges,” examined the rapid demographic changes in elementary schools in Dublin 15, a northwest district that lies largely outside the city’s major ring highway and includes its biggest shopping mall.
It said Dublin was running the risk of creating banlieues — the French term for immigrant-dominated welfare housing projects, often on a city’s edge — unless government officials committed themselves to “a degree of strategic planning that until now has proved unattainable.”
Such planning of community development was needed, it said, “to avoid the emergence of banlieues and to prevent ‘white flight.'”
Justice Minister Brian Lenihan, who unveiled the report Friday, said the government would consider its recommendations, which include a new system for tracking trends in student enrollments by issuing children taxpayer-identification numbers.
He called Dublin 15 “a unique case study” on how immigration has rapidly changed Ireland, a virtually all-white society before an economic boom began in the mid-1990s. Today more than 15 percent of the 4.2 million population was born outside Ireland.
The 2006 census found that Dublin 15’s population grew nearly 27 percent in five years, triple the national rate, while about 27 percent of its approximately 90,000 residents do not categorize themselves as “white Irish.” The newcomers include Eastern Europeans, Asians and Africans, chiefly asylum-seekers from Nigeria.
Friday’s report, which surveyed enrollment patterns at 25 elementary schools in Dublin 15, said it found “quite a serious and significant trend of Irish moving out and immigrants moving in.”
From 2003 to 2007, the report said, 79 percent of new students in Dublin 15 elementary schools were non-Irish. It called “astonishing” a finding that, since 2003, more than half of students were leaving Dublin 15 schools before reaching age 12, when they would normally transfer to secondary schools in the district.
The report was written by Enda McGorman, the principal of a Catholic elementary school in Dublin 15, and Ciaran Sugrue, director of postgraduate studies in education at St. Patrick’s College in Dublin.
They said Dublin 15 was a magnet for immigrants because it is a hub for recently constructed housing that Irish investors snapped up to rent. Immigrants usually lack the savings and credit history to qualify for mortgages in Dublin’s exceptionally pricey property market.
IHT: Report finds evidence of ‘white flight’ from immigrants in northwest Dublin
