China Puts Dissident Blogger In Nut House

China's human rights record is almost as good as their safety standards.

Dissident blogger in China put in mental hospital

The Chinese dissident blogger He Weihua has been confined in a psychiatric hospital in a detention his family blames on his criticism of the government, a press freedom group said Friday. "It is unacceptable that the Chinese authorities use such methods to silence citizens who have just expressed their views peacefully online," Reporters Without Borders said. "... How can the authorities expect us to believe that a mentally ill person is capable of detailed investigative reporting?"

The Paris-based organization said He was sent to the hospital in the southern province of Hunan early this month after making a posting in July on his blog www.boxun.com/hero/hewh that criticized an increase in pork prices by Hunan officials and predicted corruption within the Communist Party would soon cause its collapse.

Reporters Without Borders described itself as outraged by He's detention and called on the central government to intervene with Hunan authorities for He's release.

"We fear that this case shows that the Chinese authorities have still not abandoned the use of punitive psychiatry against those who expose abuses and defy censorship," the group said.

He's relatives told the group that he is not mentally ill.

"He has written an enormous number of articles on human rights, especially on Boxun. I think he has all the qualities of a person of sound mind," one relative was quoted as saying by the group.

He was confined after receiving a judicial summons from the Public Security Bureau, and it was not his first stint in a psychiatric hospital, Reporters Without Borders said. He was also held in 2004 and given injections against his will by member of the State Security Bureau, it charged.

He was also run down by a motorcycle in September, and the driver told him to stop his human-rights writings, Reporters Without Borders said.

In June, the State Security Bureau searched He's home in the city of Hengyang, confiscating his laptop and warning him he faced consequences if he continued writing about human rights, it added.

Myanmar Human Rights Defender Jailed

Myanmar Human Rights Defender Jailed

A Myanmar human rights defender beaten by a pro-government mob was sentenced to eight years in prison for inciting unrest, activists said Wednesday.

Myint Naing was sentenced Tuesday by Judge Aung Min Hein in the Henzeda township court, 60 miles northwest of Yangon, said Bo Kyi, joint-secretary of the Thailand-based Assistance Association for Political Prisoners-Burma.

He said information about the sentence came from the trial's spectators and the defendant's lawyer. The judge or a court spokesman could not be contacted.

The U.S. Campaign for Burma, which lobbies against Myanmar's military government, says that five villagers who were with Myint Naing were also sentenced to four years' imprisonment each. Burma is the old name for Myanmar, and preferred by the military regime's opponents.

Myint Naing - also known as Myint Hlaing - and a fellow member of Human Rights Defenders and Promoters Network, Maung Maung Lay, were attacked and seriously wounded April 18 at Oakpon village in Henzeda, said the U.S. Campaign for Burma and the New York-based Human Rights Watch. They were headed to another village to continue to conduct human rights training.

Their attackers, the groups said, were 50-100 men with clubs and other homemade weapons. The groups said the attack was organized and carried out by members of the Union Solidarity and Development Association - USDA - a government-backed group accused of assaulting and intimidating the junta's opponents.