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Two Men Arrested for Involvement in Riots Against Chinese One-Child Abortion Terror

By Elizabeth O'Brien

BEIJING, July 30, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Two men have been arrested for their participation in massive protests against the one-child policy enforcement that took place in southern China this spring, Reuters reports.

According to the Chinese government Xinhua News Agency, the two men referred to as Peng and Li, were arrested for forging government documents and making 400 photocopies in order to incite people to claim a fake "social support fee" refund. According to Reuters, Peng was one of many whom the government forced to pay thousands of yuan for "unapproved" births.

According to Xinhua, the court stated, "Peng became discontented with the government's family planning work...and wanted to retaliate by leading the unwitting masses to create disturbances at the government offices."

While it is difficult to discern truth from propaganda in official Chinese reporting, even should Peng and Li be guilty of forgery, 400 photocopies of forged government documents is an insufficient explanation for what may have been the largest protest against the Chinese family planning restrictions and their violent enforcements. During massive riots from May 17 to 20 this year, thousands of outraged people ransacked government buildings, lit fires, and overturned cars in the southern province of Guangxi, not far from Hong Kong.

The riots were partly the result of growing tensions between families and the family-planning officials, who would raid the private homes of people unable to pay the one-child policy violation fines. Called a "social child-raising fee", fines can range from $65 to $9,000, Kaiser reports.

A massive population crackdown was ordered in Guangxi this year because the region had exceeded its family population quota. As a result, women up to nine months pregnant were being dragged to the Youjiang District People's Hospital in Baise City where their babies were killed (see http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/apr/07042006.html).

Nevertheless, when officials were contacted, they claimed that people who were upset with state family policies fabricated the news reports. Forced abortion is officially illegal in China.

National Public Radio's (NPR) Morning Edition, however, broadcast the horrors of the abortion campaign, describing the abortion tragically forced on the Christian couple Liang Yage and his wife Wei Linrong. According to the report, 10 family-planning officials descended on their home, took the seven month pregnant Wei to the hospital in Baise and aborted her little boy.

Similarly, the NPR reported the testimony of witnesses who saw dozens of hospital beds filled with women whose babies were killed. They had either broken the one-child policy restriction or gotten pregnant before marriage, another violation of the family-planning regulations.

The abortion terror campaign has been in progress-with varying levels of enforcement-ever since the late 1970's when the one-child policy was introduced. A second child is only permitted if the first is born handicapped.

According to Steven W. Mosher, President of Population Research Institute, news of the recent abortion campaign only leaked so quickly from Communist China because the Guangxi region is close to Hong Kong, the former British Colony with strong ties to the West.

The American media coverage that resulted from the forced abortions, exploding riots, and ensuing arrests, has been a major source of embarrassment to the Chinese government, especially as the Summer Beijing Olympics approach. 

Read full National Public Radio coverage of forced abortion stories:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9766870

Previous LifeSiteNews coverage:

China's One-Child Terror Campaign Continues
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/jul/07071008.html

Forced Abortion in China Thwarted by Hong Kong Officials
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/jul/05071304.html

Husband and Wife Victims of China Forced Abortion Permitted to Seek Asylum in US
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/jun/07060704.html

Forced Abortion Continues in China at Alarming Rate says Latest Report
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2005/oct/05102602.html

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