The Price of Protest? China Sentences two Old Ladies to Hard Labor

Filed in archive News on August 20, 2008

I'll start by admitting that this has nothing to do with venture capital in China - excepted in the broadest possible sense of being about life in China....

A number of sources including the Huffington Post are reporting on 79-year-old Wu Dianyuan and her 77-year-old neighbor, Wang Xiuying. The two elderly chinese women who applied to hold a protest during the Olympics. On Sunday they were order "to serve a year long term of reeducation through labor," according to the Huffington Post.

Their crime? The two women have been...


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Their crime? The two women have been protesting their relocation within Beijing. Their homes were taken in 2001 to make room for Olympic venues. They've since staged public protests 16 times in places like Tiananmen Square.

They also applied for a permit to hold a protest in one of the three parks set aside for that purpose during the Olympics. About those park...

According to the Huffington Post, Beijing announced last month that it would allow protests in three parks far from the Olympic venues during the games but they had to be approved in advance. Of the some 77 applications lodged so far, none have been approved, and rights groups have called the zones a charade.

At last report the two women were under surveillance but hadn"t yet been ordered to report to the labor camp.