Editor’s Note: Rights & Wrongs is a weekly column covering the world’s major human rights-related happenings. It is written by regular WPR contributor Juliette Terzieff. CHINA’S ID PLAN — Beginning this month, the more than 12 million residents of the Chinese city Shenzen will be required to carry identity cards fitted with powerful computer chips including not only their names and address, as with previous identity cards, but also data on their work history, education, religion, ethnicity, police record and even personal reproductive medical history. Chinese authorities have ordered all large Chinese cities to phase in similar high-tech residency card [...]
SHYMKENT, Kazakhstan — While seven political parties are campaigning to win seats in Kazakhstan’s lower house of parliament, common Kazakhs remain largely indifferent to the election, believing the results aren’t likely to bring change from a government whose commitment to democracy is lately in doubt. Kazakh president Nursultan Nazarbayev dissolved the parliament’s lower house, the Mazhilis, June 20 and called for new elections. Ninety-eight deputies of the Mazhilis will be elected Aug. 18 in accordance with a system of party-list proportional representation that allocates seats among parties winning at least 7 percent of the vote. (The remaining nine seats of [...]
Editor’s Note: Rights & Wrongs is a weekly column covering the world’s major human rights-related happenings. It is written by regular WPR contributor Juliette Terzieff. OLYMPIC COUNTDOWN BRINGS CHINA CRITICISM — Condemnation of China’s human rights record rained down from all sides this week as Chinese authorities marked the one year countdown to the beginning of the 2008 Beijing Games with a lavish celebration. Amnesty International released a scathing report on the status of human rights in China Aug. 7, charging China has broken promises it made when bidding to host the games by increasing abuse and surveillance of political [...]
