Human Rights and Religious Liberty

UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights - Article 18 "Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance."

Saturday, December 13, 2003

Chinese Sex Slaves Suffer From 'Traffic of Tears' (VOA)
Leta Hong Fincher

View Leta Hong Fincher's report (high speed connection) (RealVideo)
View Leta Hong Fincher's report (low speed connection) (RealVideo)

China faces a growing problem of cross-border trafficking of women and children. The United Nations says that as many as 10,000 Chinese women every year are abducted and sold into sexual slavery in southeast Asia. VOA’s Beijing correspondent Leta Hong Fincher recently traveled to Yunnan in Southern China, and shows us how the slave trade in women has affected two families there in this traffic of tears.

9:55:38 AM

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FOUR DEAD AS TRAIN PLOWS THROUGH CHINESE LAND PROTEST (RFA)

Four people have died and a further seven have been injured in the central Chinese province of Henan, after an express train cut through a protest against forced evictions which had gathered on the main Beijing to Guangdong railway line, RFA's Mandarin and Cantonese services report.
9:48:19 AM

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Key Dissident Issues Plan Toward Democracy. Cuba's best-known dissident, Oswaldo Paya, detailed what analysts said was the most complete plan ever presented for a peaceful transition to democracy and a market economy. [Los Angeles Times World News]
9:36:18 AM

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TURKMENISTAN: FROM BAD TO WORSE (ANS)

Turkmenistan is a former Soviet, Central Asian state, north of Iran and Afghanistan and south of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, on the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea. More than 91% of the population is Muslim (only 2.6% are Christian, mostly Orthodox). The nation is ruled with Soviet style oppression by President Saparmurat Niyazov, a totalitarian nationalist dictator who has created a personality cult around himself. Turkmenistan has a population of 5 million, and they have little chance to hear the gospel. Those who share the gospel, do so at great risk to their life and liberty.

9:23:36 AM

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RFE/RL Central Asia Report Vol. 3, No. 42, 12 December 2003
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HEADLINES:
* UZBEK GOVERNMENT BANS CONFERENCE ON DEATH PENALTY
* IMPRISONED JOURNALIST WINS PRESS FREEDOM AWARD
* KARIMOV SLAMS INTERNATIONAL RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS
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9:19:15 AM

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CHRISTIAN DIES IN POLICE CUSTODY

(Compass) -- Reliable sources have confirmed the death of a house church Christian in police custody on October 30. Mrs. Zhang Hongmei, 33, was arrested by local police in Dongmiaodong village on October 29. Police summoned Zhang’s family and asked them to pay a bribe of 3,000 RMB (about $400). They were unable to raise the money, a sum that is well over a year’s wages for them. Later as Zhang’s family pleaded with police officers, they saw Hongmei bound with heavy chains, visibly injured and unable to speak to them. On the following day, police told the family that she had died at noon. In another incident, Zhang Yi-nan, a Christian, was badly beaten on November 11 by fellow inmates at the request of prison guards upon his arrival at a labor camp just outside Ping Ding Shan city. According to a veteran China watcher, the two incidents prove China’s lack of commitment to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

(www.compassdirect.org)

9:14:57 AM

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