Activists point finger at Chinese embassy

Images of Massey University students waving pro-Chinese government banners at a rally in Australia have angered human rights campaigners, who say Chinese embassies have drummed up support with free food and travel.

Massey University academic Li Dong, a senior lecturer in Chinese, believed the students at a Canberra rally on Wednesday to welcome the Olympic torch were from the Albany campus.

He said the banner read: "New Zealand Massey Overseas Students".

Dong said he had no proof their travel had been paid for, but suspected it was organised by Chinese embassies.

That was not to say the students did not believe what they were supporting. "They have been spoon-fed propaganda since they were in kindergarten -- in many cases the ones who can afford to come to New Zealand to study are ones whose parents have done very well out of the CCP (Communist People's Party)."

He said there was anger among different groups in China over the Government's "failure" to clean up its human rights record before the Olympics.

Journalist and human rights campaigner Nick Wong said he believed the education division of the Chinese Embassy had been encouraging overseas students to mobilise.

Various Chinese language websites had called on people to join rallies, with instructions on where to catch free buses from Sydney to Canberra and where to go for banners and free meals.

A spokesman for the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in Wellington denied the Government had been involved in the Brisbane rally or similar rallies in London, San Francisco and Paris. --Dominion Post

- © Fairfax NZ News

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press   #1   05:26 pm Jan 28 2009

What a poor reporter! Why don't you go to these Chinese websites you mentioned to have a look by yourself? You can have an interpreter to help you if you don't know Chinese. Then you will know whether these students' action of going to Australia to support the torch relay were encouraged/supported by China embassy or not. Every one know the journalist xxx is con-China government because he thinks he is not well treated by China government. How could you expect him to say something impartial to China? Why don't you randomly interview some Chinese students on campus? Then you will have a more objective viewpoint. The press is losing its sprits of probing truth. What a sadness!

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