Chinese woman forced to abort eight-month foetus

[Praxius]

Chinese woman forced to abort eight-month foetus | News.com.au

A PREGNANT woman in southern China was detained, beaten and forced to have an abortion just a month before her due date because the baby would have violated the country's one child limit, her husband claims.

Construction worker Luo Yanquan said his wife was taken kicking and screaming from their home by more than a dozen people on October 10 and detained in a clinic for three days by family planning officials, then taken to a hospital and injected with a drug that killed her baby.

Family planning officials told the couple they weren't allowed to have the child because they already have a nine-year-old daughter, Luo said.

For the past 30 years, China has limited most urban couples to just one child in a bid to curb population growth and conserve its limited resources. China has the world's largest population, with more than 1.3 billion people.

Couples that flout the rules face hefty fines, seizure of their property and loss of their jobs.

The case is an extreme example of the coercive measures Chinese officials sometimes use to comply with the strict family planning regulations. Though illegal, police and judicial authorities often look the other way when forced abortion cases are reported and the heavily censored state media shy away from such news.

But in recent years, victims have begun to speak out about their ordeals with the help of the internet and text messaging. Aiding them are social campaigners and lawyers who have documented cases of forced late-term abortions. Similar abuses have been reported in Hebei and Shandong provinces and in the Guangxi region.

An official with the Siming district family planning commission, which oversees Luo's neighbourhood, confirmed there was a record of Luo's wife, Xiao Aiying, undergoing an abortion recently, but said the procedure was voluntary and that she was about six months instead of eight months pregnant at the time. Like many Chinese bureaucrats, he refused to give his name.

China bans forced abortions, but doesn't prohibit or clearly define late-term abortion.

The Siming official said Xiao's husband had approved the abortion, a claim Luo denied.

"I never signed anything. No one in our family did," he said by telephone from Xiamen. "I called the police, but they said family planning issues weren't their responsibility. I want to sue, but lawyers I've asked here say they can't help me and the media won't report on our case."

Luo set up a blog last week to let people know what had happened to his wife, and satellite broadcaster Al-Jazeera posted a report about the couple's case on its website on Wednesday.

Photos on the blog show a pained-looking, and clearly pregnant, Xiao sitting on a hospital bed after the injection, but before the baby was stillborn 40 hours later. Other images show a large purple bruise on her arm and scratches on her leg, which Luo said were caused when family planning officials hit and kicked her as she struggled to get away.

Ordinary Chinese reacted with anger and disgust to Luo's online account, posting comments that called the family planning officials cruel and inhuman.

Xiao delivered the dead baby on October 14, but remains hospitalised and may require emergency surgery to remove pieces of placenta still in her uterus, Luo said. The couple, both 36, were not informed of the sex of the aborted baby, Luo said.

A man who answered the phone at the obstetrics ward of the Siming No. 1 Hospital confirmed that Xiao was still a patient there. He refused to provide more details or give his name.

Telephone calls to the press office of the National Population and Family Planning Commission in Beijing rang unanswered.​

​

Well there's something to brighten up your day.... remind me to think twice about going to visit there.
​

​

 

[Unforgiven]

As long as our government shuts up about human rights abuses we can continue to trade with them.

 

[Colpy]

China tried to block Darfur arms report

Shell casings found

According to the diplomats, the draft report said Chinese shell casings were found after attacks against the joint UN-African Union peacekeeping force in Darfur with markings showing the ammunition was manufactured after 2009, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the report has not been published.

The Security Council initially imposed an arms embargo on rebels and the government-allied janjaweed militias in Darfur. In March 2005, it extended the embargo to include Sudan's government.

The Darfur conflict began in February 2003 when ethnic African rebels took up arms against the Arab-dominated Sudanese government in Khartoum, claiming discrimination and neglect. Khartoum is accused of retaliating by arming local nomadic Arab tribes and unleashing the janjaweed on civilian populations — a charge the government denies.

UN officials say at least 300,000 people have lost their lives from violence, disease and displacement, and 2.7 million have been driven from their homes.

The UN panel of experts reported last November that the Sudanese government and rebel groups in Darfur were refusing to abandon the military option and increasingly violating the arms embargo.

China has been a key force in developing Sudan's vital oil sector and buying the country's crude oil and has close political ties to the government. Its alleged involvement in supplying ammunition, in violation of UN sanctions, was first reported by Foreign Policy magazine's Turtle Bay blog.

According to the two UN diplomats, the latest report by the panel of experts was first presented to the sanctions committee on Oct. 4.

The panel alleged that more than a dozen types of Chinese ammunition were used by Sudanese government forces in combat with rebels in Darfur over the past two years, the diplomats said.

CBC News - World - China tried to block Darfur arms report

But my-oh-my, we can hardly wait until the Chinese take over the world!!!!
(sarcasm alert)

We need a Kiss/kick Chinese arse thread.

 

[karrie]

That poor family.