Newsgroup: it.cultura.militare
Titolo: Libertà di stampa in Cina

 
Last Updated: Friday, 7 September 2007, 14:32 GMT 15:32 UK
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Venturing into unreported China
China has pledged more freedoms for reporters ahead of next year's 
Olympics, but when the BBC's Dan Griffiths travelled to the countryside 
to investigate reports of unrest he was detained and questioned.
File image of a policeman standing in front of the Chinese flag
China wants to keep reports of rural unrest under wraps
The village of Shengyou is a three hour drive south of Beijing, deep in 
the countryside surrounded by fields of maize.
A traditional landscape found across this vast nation - but everything 
is not as it seems.
My taxi driver tells me that the police have set up checkpoints round 
the village. He refuses to go any further - so I go the rest of the way 
on foot.
I walk down a narrow lane with broad poplar trees on either side. A 
small tractor chugs by, the driver stares at me - foreigners are rarely 
seen around here.
Round a bend in the road, I see two white vans. Several policemen are 
standing beside them. They look as out of place in rural China as I do.
The questions come thick and fast. What am I doing? Where have I come 
from? Who is my contact in the village?
Over the course of the next few hours they will ask me this last 
question again and again. From nowhere a black car pulls up and I am 
ushered inside.
Battle of Shengyou
Two years ago there was a riot in Shengyou. In the early hours of a 
November morning a gang of more than 100 men entered the village.
Footage of the clashes in the Chinese village
The 2005 clash was caught on video and widely disseminated
They were wearing camouflage gear and construction helmets, some armed 
with hunting rifles, clubs and shovels.
What happened next was filmed by a local resident and smuggled out to 
the international media.
The video showed a series of bloody clashes between the villagers and 
the attackers. Gunshots could be heard above the shouting and screaming.
When the fighting finally stopped, six people lay dead, more than 50 
were injured.
With the dramatic footage circulating, the authorities moved quickly.
State media said the Shengyou residents had been resisting the takeover 
of their property by an electricity company which wanted to build a 
power plant.
It emerged that there had been a similar clash earlier in the year, 
which had gone unreported. Several local officials were sacked and the 
villagers won their claim to stay on the land.
But now the police are back in Shengyou.
'Welcome to Dingzhou'
I am in the backseat of the black car on the way to the nearby town of 
Dingzhou.
Next to me is one of the men from the checkpoint. He is not wearing a 
police uniform and refuses to give me his name or show me any ID.
Map
The questions keep on coming - how do I know about Shengyou? Why was I 
on foot?
I tell him that my taxi driver was too scared to go near the village. He 
laughs. At one point he reaches over and tries to grab my mobile phone.
I ask some questions of my own - why are they detaining me? What is 
going on in Shengyou? He says nothing.
At the town's government headquarters, an official shakes my hand. "You 
are welcome to Dingzhou," he says, pretending that I am an honoured guest.
We sit around a large oval table. I am on one side, officials are on the 
other. Several refuse to give me their names. They want to see my 
journalist's identity card. And again the questions.
New regulations issued this year were supposed to give foreign 
journalists much greater freedom to travel around the country.
They were also supposed to mean less harassment from local officials - a 
common problem in the past and one that has not gone away.
I tell them I heard reports about problems in the village and had come 
down to look around.
People living near Shengyou say that armed police were sent into the 
village two weeks ago.
 
It is not until the next day that my driver discovers that while we were 
eating someone tampered with our car
That was after residents dug up the bodies of those who had died in the 
violence in November 2005. They wanted to protest at the lack of 
official compensation for the families of those who were killed or 
injured then.
What is happening in Shengyou is not unique. It is another reminder of 
growing social tensions in rural China.
The government has admitted that there were tens of thousands of rural 
protests last year. Many are about land grabs like the one attempted in 
Shengyou, others about corruption or the growing gap between rich and poor.
The authorities in Beijing say they want to do something about these 
problems - but often officials at the local level ignore these edicts.
Heading home
The interview is over. Officials say they will escort me back to the 
highway.
I meet up with my driver, who has been waiting for me. Three officials 
also get in the car. They sit either side of me on the back seat. 
Another in the front.
A woman walks past high-rise buildings in Beijing
This is the China the government wants to portray
As we drive out of town a black car comes alongside. The driver says we 
must pull over. This game of cat and mouse continues up the highway to 
Beijing. Finally I tell my driver to ignore them and head home.
"Have you been to Beijing before?" I ask the officials. They laugh 
nervously.
Then I see blue and red flashing lights. The police will not say why 
they have stopped us, nor will they say when we can go. We wait at the 
side of the road.
Up ahead there is a big neon sign lit up in green - "One World, One 
Dream". It is the official slogan of the Beijing Olympics.
"Is this how you will treat journalists when China hosts the Olympics?" 
I ask one of them. "Oh, everything will be different then," he says.
Then another car pulls up, with representatives from the local office of 
China's foreign ministry. I know my colleagues in Beijing have been 
pressing the foreign ministry to take action.
"There has been a terrible mistake, we are so sorry." They insist that 
we must go out for dinner with the officials from Dingzhou, then we can 
go back to Beijing.
It is a strange experience sitting round the same table with the men who 
detained me.
It is not until the next day that my driver discovers that while we were 
eating, someone tampered with our car by removing several of the bolts 
that attach the wheels to the chassis.
It is nearly midnight by the time we arrive back in Beijing. We drive 
down the wide, brightly-lit boulevards, past the new office blocks.
This is the China that Beijing wants the world to see. But in Shengyou 
there is another China - a world that goes unreported by the country's 
state-run media.
China's president, Hu Jintao, has promised to build what he calls a 
"harmonious society", but three hours south of Beijing no-one in power 
seems to be listening.
-- 
In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, 
stand like a rock. -- Thomas Jefferson

sei un imbecille che posta troiate off topic?
Te lo chiedo eh.
Vai su ipi a proporre i tuoi articoli di questo genere.

 Vai su ipi a proporre i tuoi articoli di questo genere.
Ma non ne parlavamo l'altro giorno? Non mi pare che lo trovavi ot?
O forse ha a che fare con dal tuo equilibrio chimico?
