Asia-Cast

Asia Cast for Sunday 24th August

In this Bulletin…

- Beijing accused of two sided treatments of media;
- Liaoning petitioners kept underground during the Olympics; and
- Kenya drought of medals, finally broken.

-But first, here’s our SOH focus on China
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With the 2008 Beijing Olympics coming to an end, Beijing has been accused by media rights groups of using two-sided treatments of both domestic and foreign media.

Reporters Without Borders issued a press release on August 22, assessing media freedom in China during the Olympics.

It said that while the majority of reporters did not run into problems when they reported on sports related news, any attempts to report or conduct interviews in relation to issues deemed sensitive by the government would be met by non-stop harassment and interruptions by police and plain-clothed officers.

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Twenty two petitioners have been illegally detained in Liaoning province during the Olympic Games. One such petitioner Li Sufen from Shenyang, the capital of Liaoning, says the petitioners are being held in a basement of the Hunbei Ecological Hotel in Lanjian Village of Tiaxi district.

Li has been a petitioner for 18 years and says that despite her promise to her local government that she would not petition or cause trouble during the Olympics, she was still arrested from her rental property on the eve of the Olympics. She says the detained petitioners are on 24 hour watch by public security officers, special police, security guards and Bureau of Justice staff.

Li says some of the petitioners are on hunger strike, some have slit their wrists to commit suicide and are calling on the outside to help their situation.

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And now for the rest of today’s Asia Cast
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A spokeswoman for Apple iTunes is investigating an online store in China that has been blocked after a pro-Tibet album featured on the site became popular, leaving customers outraged.

The Beijing authorities have not commented on the issue, but activists claim it is connected to the recent release of “Songs for Tibet“.

Millions of Chinese citizens use the internet for education and business, but the government sometimes tries to block access to sites run by dissidents and human rights and Tibet activists.

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New evidence of the Chinese regime’s practice of harvesting organs from Falun Gong practitioners has come to light through the admission of a Chinese doctor.

An audio recording of the doctor admitting to having taken part in harvesting organs from Falun Gong practitioners, together with a state-endorsed documentary in which the same doctor acknowledges taking part in the conversation, is “an undeniable, inculpatory admission of the harvesting of Falun Gong practitioner prisoners for profit,” say David Matas, a human rights lawyer, and David Kilgour, former Canadian secretary of state (Asia Pacific), in a letter released yesterday.

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You’re listening to Asia Cast on the SOH Radio Network
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Three days after fighting broke out in Kismayo, Somali, more than 80 people have been killed, while another 200 have been wounded, families have started to bury their dead, human rights organizations reported.

Bodies littered the streets for two days after the clashes, despite the Islamic tradition of burying bodies within 24 hours of death, said Ali Bashi Abdullahi Igal, head of the Fanole Human Rights Organization, who is in Kismayo.

Fighting has displaced some 5,500 people, triggering a humanitarian crisis.

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Thirty Thousand people have been affected by floods in southern Chad, United Nations reported.

Heavy rains have killed three people and destroyed the homes of 10,000 others.

There has been serious flooding across West Africa in recent days.

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And now for our daily round-up of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.
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Kenya’s drought of medals finally broken, Samuel Wanjiru won the Men’s marathon, breaking the Olympic record.

He beat home Morocco’s two-time world champion Jaouad Gharib for the gold while Tsegay Kebede of Ethiopia took the bronze.

For more in depth coverage of events at today’s Games, why not check out Inside China Today, at www.insidechinatoday.net.

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“Asia Cast… keeping you across the top headlines from Asia and the World.”