Beijing London Times; for the second weekend in a row, anonymous calls by organizers for a pro-democracy demonstration in Beijing were overshadowed by heavy army security presence.
Hundreds of Chinese army and police officers along with more than 120 vehicles flooded Beijing's central pedestrian shopping area, Wangfujing, around the site of a second attempted "jasmine" rally inspired by pro-democracy protests in Tunisia.
There was no sign of protest as the police deployed unusual tactics to prevent demonstrations.
Three foreign press photographers including one of the London Time’s reporters at the scene were beaten by police officers and detained and deported out of the country. Other foreign journalists, including SKY, BBC, and CNN, were manhandled, detained and escorted away from the site.
Unrest is spreading across the world like swarms of locusts, when is England going to be joining the rest of the world’s locusts?
Maybe now with more N.H.S cuts on the way, which was once a New Labour trait and now seems the coalition British government of Tories and Lib-Dems are now following suit?
Major cut’s in England’s N.H.S, looking after England’s own people, but more funding towards the EU in aid to others?
China Beijing and protests and demonstrations in Hong Kong
At Beijing's Wangfujing shopping area, a large number of plainclothes and uniformed police officers circulated the area, which is typically known for being an open area attracting throngs of domestic and foreign tourists. Every entrance to the shopping area was guarded by multiple police officers.
In front of a McDonald's restaurant, the appointed meeting place for demonstrators, a large construction site was erected several days ago following the first attempted demonstrations, directly blocking the open plaza outside the restaurant.
Nearby and very obvious, was a large group 100 plus of orange-cladded street sweepers stood near the appointed protest area with brooms but did not sweep any of the streets no guessing who they were?
When protests were scheduled to begin, two large street-washing trucks began slowly driving through the main thoroughfare, blocking pedestrian traffic and spraying water. Plainclothes police sat in restaurants and storefront windows for hours, observing the surroundings, while uniformed police officers forced journalists and onlookers out of the vicinity.
In Hong Kong, approximately 25 concerned citizens who organized on Facebook gathered in the city centre and carried placards and wore jasmine flower pins.
They gathered in front of the Golden Bauhinia, a statue of Hong Kong's official flower. It is a major tourist destination, especially for mainland Chinese tours.
Placards read, "Freedom and Democracy. End One Party Rule. Push for Political Reform."
One Hong Kong demonstrator, Lam Ng, called for the end of single-party governance. "I don't agree with the Chinese government here," he said. "I don't like the corruption why did the British government betray Hong Kong was a happy place and good place to live before the Chinese took over from the British.”
Meanwhile this Sunday morning, just hours before the demonstration was scheduled to begin, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao participated in his third annual web chat with selected Internet users on Sunday, ahead of China's annual central leadership meeting and legislative session.
Over 25,000 questions submitted were concerns for social stability. He presented several strategies to maintain calm including reducing the urban-rural income gap, increased benefits and opportunities for rural citizens, and eliminating corruption very big words but without any real meanings.
"I always say we should not only make the cake of social wealth as big as possible, but also distribute the cake in a fair way and let everyone enjoy the fruits of reform and opening up," Wen said Sunday morning.
He had no comments to make on the protests for last week or this Sunday.
Efforts to organize an earlier protest on February 20 were deemed largely unsuccessful after casual observers and police outnumbered the few protesters that showed up for the demonstrations.
Anonymous instructions on Facebook, which is blocked in China, encouraged people to show up at central locations in about two dozen major Chinese cities and "go for a walk" together on Sunday. Along with Facebook, Twitter and YouTube continue to be blocked, making calls for action available only to those outside mainland China or to Chinese who have access to virtual private networks with foreign IP addresses.
Meanwhile, LinkedIn, one of the last social networking sites allowed in the country, was temporarily blocked in China on Friday as the government ramped up internet censorship.
This time around, organizers tried to mask the events as "liang hui" -- a Mandarin term which commonly refers to meetings held each March by China's political leadership. The cleverly selected terminology is an attempt by protest organizers to circumvent censorship on popular micro blogs in the lead-up to actual meetings held by the National People's Congress and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.
Words such as "jasmine" in Chinese and "Wangfujing,” the famous Beijing shopping strip where Sunday's demonstrations are set to begin were not searchable on China's most popular micro blog, Sina Weibo, on Friday. The Chinese name of U.S. Ambassador Jon Huntsman Jr., who showed up at last Sunday's "jasmine" protest in Beijing, is also blocked.
When searching the terms, users see a message that states: "According to relevant laws and policies, search results cannot be shown."
China will follow others and become chaotic, like many other countries?" as like the unrest that has consumed several countries in Africa and the Middle East, Ireland as protesters their demands democracy and a stop to corruption, when is England going to join this unrest is only a matter of time which now ticking away and maybe the cuts in the English N.H.S. will stop the clock of tolerances
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