Asia Cast for Thursday 28th August
In this Bulletin…
-After the Olympics closing ceremony, situation of victims in Sichuan remains unchanged;
-100 passengers aboard a hijacked plane, freed; and
-Severe flooding has left more than 2 million people homeless.
-But first, here’s our SOH focus on China
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After the grand lavish Olympic Games the earthquake victims in Sichuan still live in temporary tents day after day without seeing any prospects ahead.
According to a report by Agence France-Presse (AFP) on the 27th August, a woman named LI Gui-lan of Dujiangyan City lost her husband to the quake,and now resides with her unemployed son and daughter-in-law in a tent making a living by selling red beans with a daily income of only 2 yuan.
Another victim in the quake disaster area said: we heard there arrived some relief materials, including aids from overseas. But we have received nothing and we have all been told to rely on ourselves for survival.
Asia Cast for Wednesday 27th August
In this Bulletin…
- Chinese political prisoner Hu Shigen released after 16 years;
- Tibet faces real possibility of increased repression now Olympics are over; and
- Protesters continue to occupy official buildings in Bangkok.
But first, here’s our SOH focus on China
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Human Rights in China announced that the Chinese authorities have released long-term political prisoner and veteran democracy advocate Hu Shigen.
Hu was released Tuesday, August 26, after serving sixteen years of a twenty-year sentence for counter-revolutionary crimes.
During 1991 when he worked as a lecturer in the Beijing Language Institute, Hu established the China Freedom and Democracy Party and the Preparatory Committee of the Free Labour Union of China.
Although the crimes he was convicted of were eliminated in a 1997 revision of the Criminal Law, Hu remained in prison for another eleven years, a situation that Human Rights in China Executive Director, Sharon Hom, called tragic.
