Asia-Cast

Asia Cast for Monday 27th April

In this bulletin …

- Handbook of Beijing city department stirs up public anger;
-Appellants sought by Chinese regime for protesting in Beijing
University; and
-Asia on high alert for flu virus.

But first, here’s our SOH focus on China

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On April 20, a post on Tianya Community Online, ignited heated discussions on Chinese media and blogs. The post disclosed part of a training handbook for city management, teaching its officers how to beat people without leaving any evidence.

The post titled “Shocking City management manual” states, not to leave blood on the offender’s face or wounds on the offender’s body and make sure no one is around.

It went on to say that beatings should be done in one continuous movement that is short and agile, and leaves no room for a victim’s response. It must also be clean and well-executed with no  hesitation to use your whole strength. In three days the post received over 4,000 responses.

According to a Beijing newspaper, the official title of the manual is “City Management Law Enforcement Practical Manual.” It is written and edited by the City Management Training Material Development Division under the Beijing Municipal Management Bureau and Beijing Municipal Work Management Committee Training Centre.

The Manual was published in 2006 by the National Academy of Education Administration.

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Officials are now on the lookout for appellants who recently went to Beijing University to protest. The protest broke out after the university’s Professor and Director of Forensic Department, Sun Dongdong, claimed that more than 99 percent of appellants in China were mentally insane, as reported by The Epoch Times.

Chinese officials have been looking for appellants since April 17. So far, only a few of the appellants remain at Beijing University. A large number appealed to different office levels, including the State’s Appeal Office, the High Court, and the State’s Health Department, demanding that Sun Dongdong apologize in person and pay them financial compensation.

According to the regime’s internal documents, recently exposed on the Internet, police were instructed to carefully check and take each appellant’s statements, in an effort to collect more evidence to suppress the appellants and find out who the organizer is.

Most appellants were sent back to their hometowns. Some were detained, while others went missing.

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Beijing has implemented another measure in Tibet to cut off the information flow through electronic media.

In Maqu County, Gansu Province alone, the regime replaced 170 satellite dishes. Residents can only receive China Central TV (CCTV) signals and no longer have Internet access.

Kongbo Dangzha, a member of the Tibetan Language Research Center in Norbu-glingka, Dharamsala, India, told Radio Free Asia that the authority started to replace the receivers on April 10 and finished on April 23. He commented saying that in the last couple of days, all the receivers cannot be used and they can no longer listen to RFA now.

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And now for the rest of today’s Asia Cast

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In an attempt to prevent a deadly flu virus entering China, the country has banned imports of pork products from Mexico and several US states. Travellers to Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia will be screened for the symptoms of swine flu.

Asian governments are on high alert after the World Health Organization (WHO) warned of a possible pandemic. Asia has battled hard to stem another highly-contagious flu virus, H5N1, which has claimed hundreds of lives.

Outbreaks have also been reported in the US and Canada, and there are suspected cases in Australia and New Zealand, France, Spain, Brazil and Israel.

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And now for our Shen Yun quote of the day

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Merrin Mangan, a former dance school owner, was at the final matinee Shen Yun show in Sydney.

Merrin remarked that, “she learnt from the show that  ‘the Chinese people’ didn’t want to lose their culture and identity through things that are happening in China.”

Shen Yun Performing Arts will be in Los Angeles on May 8th, continuing to revive China’s ancient culture.

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“Asia Cast … Keeping you across the top headlines from Asia and the world.”