China tries to stamp out 'Jasmine Revolution'
By ANITA CHANG, Associated Press Anita Chang, Associated Press
45 mins ago
BEIJING – Jittery Chinese authorities staged a
concerted show of force Sunday to squelch a mysterious online call for a
"Jasmine Revolution" apparently modeled after pro-democracy
demonstrations sweeping the Middle East.
Authorities detained activists, increased the
number of police on the streets and censored online calls to stage
protests in Beijing, Shanghai and 11 other major cities. Citizens were
urged to shout, "We want food, we want work, we want housing, we want
fairness" — a slogan that highlights common complaints among ordinary
Chinese.
Many activists said they didn't know who was
behind the campaign and weren't sure what to make of the call to
protest, which was first posted on U.S.-based, Chinese-language advocacy
website Boxun.com.
China's authoritarian government has appeared
unnerved by recent protests in Egypt, Tunisia, Bahrain, Yemen, Algeria
and Libya. It has limited media reports about them, stressing the
instability caused by protests in Egypt, and restricted Internet
searches to keep people uninformed.
Saturday's call to protest in China did not
seem to garner much traction among citizens. In Beijing, 25-year-old Liu
Xiaobai was stopped by police Sunday afternoon after he placed a white
jasmine flower on a planter in front of a McDonald's restaurant that was
the planned protest site and took some photos with his cell phone.
"I'm quite scared because they took away my
phone. I just put down some white flowers, what's wrong with that?" Liu
said. "I'm just a normal citizen and I just want peace."
Security agents tried to take away Liu, but he was swarmed by journalists and eventually was seen walking away with a friend.
Two other people were taken away by police,
including a shabbily dressed old man who was cursing and shouting,
though it wasn't clear if he was there because of the online call to
protest.
Any potential protesters were far outnumbered
by the hundreds of rubberneckers at the busy Wangfujing pedestrian
mall, who wondered if there was a celebrity in the area because of the
heavy police presence and dozens of foreign journalists and news
cameras.
In Shanghai, three people were taken away by
police after breaking into a scuffle in front of a Starbucks coffee shop
in what appeared to be an attempt to attract attention. They were not
holding placards and their intentions were unclear.
There were no reports of protests in other
cities where people were urged to gather, such as Guangzhou, Tianjin,
Wuhan and Chengdu.
Ahead of the planned protests, more than 100
activists in cities across China were taken away by police, confined to
their homes or were missing, the Hong Kong-based group Information
Center for Human Rights and Democracy said. Families and friends
reported the detention or harassment of several dissidents, and some
activists said they were warned not to participate.
On Sunday, searches for "jasmine" were
blocked on China's largest Twitter-like microblog, and status updates
with the word on popular Chinese social networking site Renren.com were
met with an error message and a warning to refrain from postings with
"political, sensitive ... or other inappropriate content."
Mass text messaging service was unavailable
in Beijing due to "technical issues," according to a customer service
operator for leading provider China Mobile. In the past, Chinese
authorities have suspended text messaging in politically tense areas to
prevent organizing.
Boxun.com said its website was attacked by
hackers Saturday after it posted the call to protest. A temporary site,
on which users were reporting heavy police presence in several cities,
was up and running Sunday. The site said in a statement it had no way of
verifying the origins of the campaign.
The call for a Jasmine Revolution came as
President Hu Jintao gave a speech to top leaders Saturday, asking them
to "solve prominent problems which might harm the harmony and stability
of the society." Hu told the senior politicians and officials to provide
better social services to people and improve management of information
on the Internet "to guide public opinion," the official Xinhua News
Agency reported.
The ruling Communist Party is dogged by the
threat of social unrest over rising food and housing prices and other
issues. In the latest price increase, the National Development and
Reform Commission announced Saturday that gasoline and diesel prices
would be raised by 350 yuan ($53) per ton.
Tensions were already high in recent days
after a video secretly made under house arrest by one of China's
best-known activist lawyers, Chen Guangcheng, was made public. Chen and
his wife reportedly were beaten in response, and some of Chen's
supporters reported being detained or beaten by authorities after
meeting to discuss his case.
___
Associated Press writers Cara Anna and Charles Hutzler in Beijing and Elaine Kurtenbach in Shanghai contributed to this report.