2015-08-25
As the ruling Chinese Communist Party gears up for a massive military parade to mark the end of World War II in September, authorities across the country are detaining former army veterans, tightening controls on ethnic minority groups, and rounding up anyone with a complaint against the government.
Thirty heads of state, including Russian president Vladimir Putin and South Korean president Park Geun-hye, will attend China’s celebration on Sept. 3 of its victory over Japan, although Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe won’t be among them, the foreign ministry said.
Guests also include former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Myanmar president Thein Sein, Vietnamese president Truong Tan Sang, and senior North Korean official Choe Ryong-hae.
Beijing is already under tight security as crack People’s Liberation Army (PLA) troops practice with military hardware by night along the city’s tree-lined boulevards, residents said.
A Beijing resident surnamed Li said she had been refused entry to Tiananmen Square at the weekend, amid tight security.
“I tried to go to Tiananmen [on Sunday], to go onto the Square, but I couldn’t get in,” Li said. “They’re not allowing people to go in there right now, although you can go past it in the bus.”
Petitioners targeted
Nationwide, police are targeting anyone with a potential grievance against the government, including petitioners, former PLA soldiers protesting a lack of pension, and ethnic minority groups.
Sichuan-based rights activist Huang Qi, who founded the Tianwang rights website, said local governments have been issued with a set of guidelines aimed at ensuring that petitioners don’t even make it as far as Beijing in the next few days.
“Local governments have been taking outrageous measures, including the use of judicial action, to stop people getting to Beijing,” Huang told RFA. “In the process they have been using criminal detention and other methods as a way of persecuting the general public.”
“This is actually a disgrace for this military parade being held in mainland China … [which is] a disaster for petitioners.”
He said police and volunteer security guards are detaining petitioners on the streets and forcing them back to their hometowns.
Beijing-based petitioner Zhang Shufeng said she is currently in need of medical attention after being detained and beaten by police, and held under house arrest ahead of the military parade.
“What right to they have to curb my freedom of movement?” Zhang said. “My back hurts [and] they won’t pay the medical bills.”
Postal controls
Meanwhile, authorities in the troubled northwestern region of Xinjiang have stepped up controls on the mostly Muslim Uyghur ethnic group ahead of the anniversary parade, an exile Uyghur group said.
“China is … stepping up controls targeting the districts where Uyghurs live, carrying out security checks of everyone’s bag as they go in and out,” Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the World Uyghur Congress, told RFA.
He said the controls even extend to packages being sent by mail.
“Now, they are collecting the personal details of everyone who sends a package and everyone who receives one,” Raxit said. “I think the authorities are bringing a state of terror on themselves … and that’s why they are coming up with such extreme policies.”
An employee surnamed Liu at a courier depot in Xinjiang’s regional capital, Urumqi, said Beijing is operating on high security alert.
“The security alert is very high now, and that includes Tianjin, where you can’t send any goods at all right now,” Liu said.
“If you want to send something to Beijing from here, it has to be requested from headquarters, and any consignments have to have the full, real name of the sender, because of the military parade,” he said.
“This is a rule set by the national postal service,” Liu added. “They are [also] not taking any consignments from Tibet at all now. It’s too risky.”
