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Sports

As Olympics heat up, China clamps down on dissent

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But in a different part of Beijing, prominent human rights activist Hu Jia is again living in another kind of bubble: what he says is a house arrest imposed by authorities who want him out of public view during the Games.

“They said Winter Olympics is a very important political event and no ‘disharmonious voice’ will be allowed — like any criticism of the Winter Olympics, or any talk related to human rights,” said Hu, who spoke to CNN during what he describes as a weeks-long restriction to his home.

“In China, people like me are called ‘domestic hostile forces’… that’s why they have to cut me off from the outside world,” said Hu, who gained international prominence as a champion of human rights in the early 2000s and was a friend to late Nobel Peace Prize winner and dissident Liu Xiaobo.
Hu says he has been restricted to his residence, with the exception of trips to care for his ailing mother, since January 15. It’s an escalation of the round-the-clock state surveillance Hu says he has been under for nearly two decades. It’s also treatment he has become used to during sensitive political events in China. Hu said he was originally told to leave Beijing altogether and relocate to Guangdong during the Olympic period but an outbreak of Covid-19 prevented him from going.

But Hu is far from the only dissident facing restrictions in the months leading up the Winter Games.

William Nee, research and advocacy coordinator at Chinese Human Rights Defenders, a non-profit network supporting rights advocates in China, said before the Winter Games there had been an uptick in reports of state security wanting to know people’s whereabouts, house arrests and the detention of high profile activists and lawyers.

“The Olympics has given China an opportunity to showcase its international clout and it doesn’t want pesky activists disrupting that and talking about its human rights abuses,” he said, adding that many prominent rights defenders are “surveilled by state security all the time” or subject to other measures of control.

Rights experts say that crackdowns on activists and speech — which can range from closing social media accounts to house arrests, detentions or enforced disappearances — are typical in the lead up to sensitive events in China, where the Communist Party keeps a tight lid on dissent.

“The point is to prevent any contact between the activists and, essentially, the outside world, which, during these events, tends to pay more attention to what’s happening in China,” said Maya Wang, a senior China researcher at the New York-based non-profit Human Rights Watch.

But controls on dissent have been getting tighter year-round, blurring the line between normal and sensitive periods, according to observers.

“The human rights environment in China has deteriorated pretty significantly in the last decade,” Wang said.

A shadow over the Games

Concerns over China’s human rights record have already cast a shadow over Beijing’s Olympic Games, including a US-led diplomatic boycott over what Washington calls serious human rights abuses against Uyghur and other Muslim minorities in the country’s far-western region of Xinjiang.

China has denied these charges and pushed back on international concerns about its human rights record, calling these “political posturing and manipulation” in the lead up to the Games.

Following a faxed request for comment on allegations that Hu Jia has been forcibly confined to his home during the Winter Olympics, and that other human rights activists have also been detained or monitored, China’s Ministry of Public Security referred CNN to Beijing authorities. Multiple calls to the Beijing municipal government went unanswered.

Hu, who rose to prominence for his activism related to HIV/AIDS in rural China, says the house arrest began after he posted on Twitter — a platform banned in China — describing a ramp-up of restrictions and controls on activists in the lead up to the Beijing Games,. He also noted the circumstances of jailed or missing dissidents while using a Winter Olympics hashtag in Chinese.

Since then, security agents have visited him multiple times, Hu says, including once this week to instruct him not to discuss Olympic skier Eileen Gu. That was after Hu commented via Twitter on an article about the US-born athlete who is representing China at the Beijing Games.

Hu says he expects this period of house arrest could last through the country’s annual legislative gathering next month. He says he’ll spend the time reading.

“It’s so much better than my friends who are suffering in jail and prison. We are like (the difference between) heaven and hell, so I have nothing to complain about,” Hu said in a recorded video dairy, where he is documenting this period of house arrest for CNN.

“There is some level of stress for sure, my mental health, and so on. After all, you always want to be able to walk out of your home freely and stand under the bright sky,” he said in another entry.

But Hu is no stranger to harsher forms of confinement.

Just months before Beijing hosted its last Olympics in 2008, Hu was handed a three-and-a-half year prison term for “incitement to subvert state power” — a sentence that activists at the time linked to his work calling international attention to human rights abuses in China ahead of the Games.

This time, Hu watched the Olympic opening ceremony from his elderly parents’ home in Beijing — the one place he says the security agents will allow him to visit and a privilege he says they have threatened to deny if he acts out. He also says if things escalate he could be imprisoned again. But nonetheless, Hu has a message.

“This might be the only Olympics in history that has drawn so much attention to its host country’s human rights issues. This is a really good opportunity to explore and discover China’s human rights issues, including Uyghurs, Tibetans, Hong Kongers, Taiwanese… and also citizens, human rights activists, and dissidents like us who are in mainland China now,” said Hu.

“I hope the world will see this clearly and pay more attention to human rights issues…not just during the Winter Olympics…but also keep watching democracy, human rights, and the future of China,” he said.

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World

Iran Clamps Down on Protests Against Growing Water Shortages

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For two weeks the Iranian government tolerated growing protests over scarce water supplies in the central Iranian city of Isfahan, watching them grow as restaurants served demonstrators free soup and barbers offered free haircuts. State television even aired interviews with farmers discussing their grievances.

But after the protests spilled over to at least one other city, the predictable happened on Friday: The government violently cracked down.

Security forces wielding batons, shields and guns swarmed the city’s riverbed around 4 a.m. Thursday as a group of farmers were sipping tea and chatting about protest strategy around a campfire.

The security forces had used a megaphone to tell farmers they had 10 minutes to evacuate, Hassan Tavakoli, a 47-year-old farmer from Isfahan, said in a telephone interview. His account was backed up by several videos that were shared with The New York Times by Isfahan residents.

“Before we had a chance to move, suddenly our tents were set on fire and they started throwing tear gas at us and shooting in the air,” Mr. Tavakoli said. He said the crowd included several families with young children and two babies.

“I never expected them to do this to us, to beat us, fire at us and injure farmers,” he added.

For more than two weeks, Mr. Tavakoli and hundreds of other farmers had been protesting on the dry bed of the city’s storied Zayanderoud River. Tens of thousands of people had joined them in a show of solidarity.

Their demand: Restore water flows to the river to help irrigate farmlands laid to waste from years of mismanaging water resources.

“We have nothing left of our lands and livelihoods, we are just asking for our water rights,” said Mr. Tavakoli. He owns three hectares of farmland that was once lush with crops of wheat, barley, and vegetables. The land has been dry and barren for 15 months, forcing Mr. Tavakoli to sell his livestock to survive.

Iran has been facing increasing water scarcity issues because of years of mismanagement. In the case of Isfahan, water has been diverted through underground pipes away from farmlands and toward industrial complexes in the desert province of Yazd and for drinking water to the religious city of Qom.

Iran Meteorological Organization estimates that some 97 percent of the country is dealing with drought at some level. The country’s former energy minister warned in May that Iran was facing its driest summer in 50 years and that temperatures approaching 50 degrees Celsius — 122 degrees Fahrenheit — would lead to cuts in electricity power and shortages of water.

Protests in July over water shortages, mostly staged by farmers from the ethnic Arab population in Khuzestan Province, were also violently crushed by the government. As a temporary solution, officials opened a damn, and water flowed back to the river, helping irrigate the farmers’ land and hydrate livestock.

In Thursday’s crackdown, security forces demanded the farmers issue a statement announcing their sit-in had ended even though no resolution had been reached and the government had not taken steps to address their concerns, Mr. Tavakoli said.

On Friday, as people gathered to protest, security forces lashed out with more violence. Clashes spread from the dry riverbed to streets in downtown Isfahan. Security guards fired bird shots and tear gas at the crowds of protesters and beat them with batons, according to two eyewitnesses in the area and videos shared widely on social media.

There were no official casualty numbers, but videos and eyewitnesses said scores of demonstrators were injured. Mr. Tavakoli said dozens of farmers were also badly injured in the clashes, but he had not heard of any reports of deaths. Rights activists said dozens of people were arrested.

Videos on social media showed a woman clad in a black chador bleeding from the nose; a middle-aged man with blood running down his face from a bruised swollen eye; and a man’s bare back riddled with red spots, apparently from bird shots.

Some videos showed protesters throwing stones at anti-riot police and chanting “shame on you” and “death to the Dictator” and “death to Khamenei,” targeting Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the last word in all key state and security matters.

Mobile and internet service was disrupted in Isfahan and Khuzestan, residents reported, as they government sought to cut off communication and organizing.

Experts on Iran’s water scarcity issues say climate change and reduced rainfall have exacerbated the drought caused by mismanagement.

“This is water bankruptcy, there are lots of water right holders but not enough water in the accounts,” said Kaveh Madani, a world renown water expert and former deputy head of Iran’s environment agency. “People upstream and downstream of Zayanderoud are asking for water for all. But this is mission impossible.”

The Zayanderoud River snakes through the historic city of Isfahan. Its leafy riverbanks are the city’s main green space, and families gather on summer evenings for picnics. In the fall, the river serves as a stop for migratory birds flocking south.

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World

India clamps down on free speech to fight farmer protests

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NEW DELHI (AP) — When Vinod K. Jose, executive editor of The Caravan, India’s leading investigating magazine, logged onto Twitter on Monday, he was shocked to find the magazine’s account blocked.

Jose was already dealing with a case of sedition and other charges against him, the magazine owners and a freelance journalist. At the heart of the allegations is the magazine’s coverage of the ongoing farmers’ protests that have gripped India for more than two months.

As the farmers camp out at the edges of the capital, protesting new agricultural laws they say will devastate their earnings, the mainstream and social media have come under unprecedented attacks from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party. Critics say it has used the massive demonstrations to escalate a crackdown on free speech, detaining journalists and freezing Twitter accounts.

“It’s a very chilling development for the press,” said Apar Gupta, executive director of the Internet Freedom Foundation, a digital rights advocacy group.

Jose shared a screenshot of the blocked account from his personal handle. Soon outrage ensued. Activists, journalists and media watchdogs rushed to condemn Twitter, which said it had acted upon a “valid legal request” issued by an Indian authority.

Hundreds of Indian Twitter accounts, including those of news websites, activists and a farmers’ union, were suspended on Monday. Some, including The Caravan’s, have since been restored.

Offline, at least nine journalists have been charged in the last few weeks for covering the protests.

The trigger for the clampdown was the death of a protester, Navneet Singh, when the largely peaceful rallies turned violent on Jan. 26 after a group of farmers veered from an agreed protest route and stormed New Delhi’s 17th century Red Fort. Hundreds of police and farmers were injured in clashes.

Farmer leaders condemned the violence but refused to call off the protest.

Authorities say no shots were fired and that Singh died because his tractor overturned. His family alleged he was fatally shot. Their account has been published by several outlets, including The Caravan.

Ministers in Modi’s government accused the journalists and a prominent opposition parliamentarian of inciting hatred and endangering the nation’s integrity through inaccurate reporting and tweets. It led to the filing of colonial-era sedition charges, which carry a maximum five-year prison term.

The law, like its equivalent in other former British colonies, is viewed as draconian and was revoked in the United Kingdom in 2010.

Prosecutions on sedition charges are rare but their use to silence journalists, critics and dissenters in India isn’t new and previous governments had resorted to it. But official data shows that Modi’s government has used the law more than any other — up by nearly 30%. It has also repeatedly rejected demands to repeal it.

Calls and messages seeking comment from four BJP spokespersons went unanswered. Calls to the party’s media office also were unsuccessful.

Media watchdogs and rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, condemned the government’s actions as censorship. The Editors Guild of India said the cases against journalists were “an attempt to intimidate, harass, browbeat, and stifle the media.”

Daniel Bastard, the head of Reporters Without Borders’ Asia-Pacific desk, said the government was trying to impose its own narrative.

Critics say India under Modi is growing intolerant. Its ranking on the World Press Freedom Index has fallen every year, and it ranked 142nd out of 180 places in 2020.

Reporters Without Borders noted “police violence against journalists” and increased “pressure on the media to toe the Hindu nationalist government’s line” as a major reason for the demotion.

But similarly, Twitter’s reaction of suspending accounts has also “set a terrible precedent” for free speech and press, said Jose.

“We like Twitter to stand neutral as opposed to being vulnerable to the pressures of power,” he said.

India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology in its notice to Twitter on Monday said that it directed the company to take down accounts that had used incendiary hashtags during the Jan. 26 violence. But Jose said The Caravan never used such hashtags and that Twitter did not notify the magazine before suspending its account.

The ministry did not respond to calls and emails but issued another statement Wednesday, accusing Twitter of “unilaterally” restoring the accounts “despite orders to withhold them.”

It said the platform had to adhere to the authorities’ directions and may face criminal charges “for not complying with government orders.”

Twitter declined to comment.

Gupta from Internet Freedom Foundation said the IT law the government invoked to freeze the Twitter accounts gives it the power to direct online intermediaries and internet service providers to block certain content without providing any explanation.

“In the past, governments have blocked individual journalistic accounts, but the blocking of an account of an entire publication is a level of escalation,” said Gupta.

The government’s response to the farmer protests has gone beyond India’s borders.

On Wednesday, India’s Ministry of External Affairs condemned “vested interest groups trying to enforce their agenda” after pop star Rihanna and teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg tweeted in support of the protests.

Entertainers in India haven’t been spared either.

On Jan. 1, Muslim comedian Munawar Faruqui was arrested for allegedly insulting Hindu sentiments while performing in Indore, a city in Madhya Pradesh state that’s ruled by Modi’s party.

In India, intentionally hurting religious sentiments is a criminal offense. But Faruqui was arrested preemptively before his performance even began.

“Before he could even make the joke, before he could even really start the show, police came and dragged him away,” said Anshuman Shrivastava, Faruqui’s lawyer.

The show was canceled and police have since admitted they have no evidence against the comic. He was granted temporary bail by the Supreme Court on Friday, after three lower courts refused to do so.

The Associated Press reached out to five prominent comedians who didn’t want to speak on record but said they were increasingly scared of making jokes against the government and Hindu religion.

“What we are witnessing right now is a blatant violation of free speech in India, which the government has legitimized in full public view,” said Sanjay Rajoura, a prominent Indian satirist. “The government first came after Muslims because they are an easily visible minority. But now it is coming after anyone who has an informed, intelligent expression.”

The ire of Hindu nationalist groups aligned with Modi’s party has also caught streaming platforms off guard. Many of their shows have faced boycott calls and legal cases. Recently, the Supreme Court issued a notice to Amazon Prime over its show “Mirzapur” after a petition claimed it hurt cultural sentiments.

Such incidents haven’t inspired much faith in the courts, said The Caravan’s Jose. He and the owners are still battling criminal charges.

“I hope the courts see that the world is watching how the largest democracy’s judiciary defends personal liberties,” Jose said.

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