The top editors of the China Youth Daily were meeting in a conference room last August when their cell phones started buzzing quietly with text messages. One after another, they discreetly read the notes. Then they traded nervous glances.
Colleagues were informing them that a senior editor in the room, Li Datong, had done something astonishing. Just before the meeting, Li had posted a blistering letter on the newspaper's computer system attacking the Communist Party's propaganda czars ...
Read the rest at the link.
The PRC's goons aren't going to go away gracefully, though, and Sean LaFreniere links this disturbing story about Chinese government harrassment within America's borders:
Peter Yuan Li was beaten, tied up, blindfolded with duct tape and robbed of two laptop computers last week by three Asian men who burst into his suburban Atlanta home with a gun and knife.
He and other Chinese-Americans suspect it was no ordinary robbery.
Li, who works for a newspaper and Web site critical of the Chinese Communist Party, is one of several people tied to China's banned Falun Gong spiritual movement who say they have been harassed and hit with break-ins in the United States by Chinese agents.
They say China has carried its crackdown on dissidents to this country.
FBI spokesman Stephen Emmett said the bureau is looking into the attack on Li for potential civil rights violations and refused to comment on whether the Chinese government was behind it. ...
Sean calls it an "act of war", and I agree. Here's more from the Epoch Times:
At noon on February 8th, two armed men forced themselves into the home in Atlanta of Epoch Times Chief Technical Officer Mr. Yuan P. Li, beating him and stealing two of his laptops. After Mr. Li managed to free himself from the extension cord used to bind him, he was taken to an area hospital for treatment. His statement describing this attack is published below.
This crime, occurring in a very safe area in Atlanta and done without concern for the taking of valuables, breaks new ground in the Chinese Communist regime's campaign against The Epoch Times.
That campaign has previously taken the form of arresting Epoch Times staff inside mainland China, and, outside mainland China, systematically stealing newspapers, attempting to intimidate advertisers, applying pressure to deny Epoch Times staff the opportunity to cover events at which Chinese government officials appear, and threatening the family members inside mainland China of Epoch Times staff living outside China. ...
Go to the link for the rest, and for pictures of the poor guy. Here's Li's statement:
My name is Yuan Li. I am forty-one years old and am an Epoch Times IT staff member. Today (Feb. 8) I was beaten up by thugs and my computers were taken away.
Around noon, someone rang the doorbell. I looked through the peephole and saw an Asian man in his 30s, and I opened the door. The man told me that he was there to deliver water. I said I did not order any water and asked if he made a mistake.
While I was talking, another man appeared from around the corner. The two forced themselves into the apartment. One of them pulled out a dagger, the other, a gun. And they ordered me not to move. I started crying for help and wanted to run away. They covered me with a bed quilt until I was almost suffocated. Then they took off the bed quilt and started beating me, especially in the temple area; they probably beat me with the gun handle, and I bled profusely. Finally they used the tape they brought with them to tape my mouth, my eyes and my ears; my arms were tied behind my back and my legs were also tied up. I couldn't move at all; I could neither see nor scream.
The first two men spoke Korean, which I don't understand. From what I could tell, another two men came in [later], one of them knows Mandarin, as he asked me in Chinese, "where is your safe?" He probably doesn't speak English. They searched upstairs and downstairs several times and left about half an hour later. ...
Epoch Times: Yuan Li beaten in his own home.
China
censorship
Yuan Li
