This Saturday, Sept. 10, is World Suicide Prevention Day. In China, which accounts for 25 percent of all the world’s suicides, an average of 287,000 people—or one every 2 minutes—commit suicide every year, and 2,000,000 attempt suicide but are unsuccessful, according to data from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Suicide is the 5th leading cause of death in China but it has become the leading cause of death among people aged 15 to 34.

The unusually high suicide rate among Chinese youth and young adults has been attributed to intense academic and employment pressure. High school and college students, as well as young parents are the groups suffering under the most pressure in China, a Sichuan News commentary opined in a Sept. 8 piece.

Students are stressed by a heavy academic burden, body growth, emotions, and prospects for employment, while young parents face pressure from high costs of living, their job, and their children’s education, it said. The article also attributes the high suicide rate to the current education system in China, a system that emphasizes grades and status at the expense of societal relations.

Stress can lead to exacerbate the risk of mental depression, which is the primary cause of suicide in China, according to the Beijing Morning Post. Depression increases the risk of suicide by 6 to 10 times.

China’s suicide rate has soared 60 percent in the past 50 years and the relatively high suicide rate in China also shows a quite different pattern between city-dwellers and country folk: the rural rate is triple that of the urban. Seventy-five percent of suicides by Chinese take place in the countryside and about 58 percent of them are done by taking pesticides.

In addition, China is one of few countries where the women’s suicide rate is higher than the men’s. In recent years more than 150,000 women commit suicide and 1.5 million attempt suicide annually in China, Wu Xuehua, Director of the National Women’s Federation’s Rights and Wellbeing Division said.

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Dear Mr. President,

As a proud dad, you have often mentioned your two lovely girls—Malia and Sasha—in your speeches. I’d like to tell you the story of a Chinese girl visiting Washington, D.C., from China.

One hot day this summer, Meilian, a Chinese lady in her ’70s, followed her daily routine and put up a banner on the National Mall. She was there to do what she calls “truth clarification” to the Chinese visitors—telling them the facts about the persecution of Falun Gong (also known as Falun Dafa).

A group of teenage kids had arrived in the United States from China for their summer camp and were touring Washington. Among them was a teenage girl who approached Meilian with tears in her eyes and whispered, “Grandma, you know what? My grandma also practices Falun Gong.”

The old lady, also with tears in her eyes, patted the girl’s back, “Please say ‘hi’ to your grandma and ask them to take good care of themselves. We know what they’ve been through.”

The old lady Meilian knows too well how much depression and sorrow lay behind the girl’s tears. A picture could instantly appear before her eyes. The Neighborhood Committee, controlled by the Communist Party, may have come to harass the girl’s grandma from time to time, warning her not to travel to Beijing.

The police may even have dragged the grandma to a police car, right in front of the girl’s eyes. At school, the girl may have been shouted at almost everyday, “Shame on you! Your grandma is Falun Gong. Shame on you!” The parents may have been hopelessly worried, “Can our only daughter still go to college?”

The old lady Meilian also knows how much relief and hopefulness is behind the girl’s tears. As soon as she saw words “Falun Gong” on the banner, the hope lit up in her heart, “It is not dark everywhere, as it is in China! People can freely practice Falun Gong on free soil like that of the United States! My grandma and I are not bad people!”

Mr. President, I bet the very first thing the girl will shout to her grandma upon returning home is, “Grandma, Grandma! People in America also practice Falun Gong! They do it right at the National Mall in the nation’s capital! No police kick them around and beat them up!”

Imagine, Mr. President, how much hope and encouragement this would give to the girl’s grandma and her friends, many of whom are also senior citizens and also live with the daily worry of whether their children will have to visit them in prison next week.

Yet, all of this happens not because the U.S. government has done a lot for them, but just because the United Stated does as little as allowing people to have the freedom to express their opinions in any public place like the National Mall.

Mr. President, imagine how much more hope and encouragement you can give to tens of millions of Chinese people living under the tyranny if you say to Hu Jintao, the chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, “Mr. Hu, give Falun Gong freedom!”

You will be remembered by people around the world, especially Chinese people, for generations to come, just as President Reagan has been for his famous statement, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!”

Mr. President, in China, millions of Falun Gong parents love their children no less than you and Michelle do Malia and Sasha. They also want to take their kids to piano and tennis classes, and to do gardening with them and even teach them how to eat healthily.

But they know that all of these simple pleasures are luxuries beyond their reach. They’d be happy if they are not deprived of their jobs for their belief in Falun Gong and can still put food on the table for their children.

They’d be happy if their children can enter college without having to sign a declaration statement saying, “I don’t practice Falun Gong.”

They’d be happy if their children won’t be summoned to the police station only to be given their parents’ ashes.

In your letter to Malia and Sasha before your inauguration you wrote of what you want for them. You hoped they would take up the work of “righting the wrongs that you see and working to give others the chances you’ve had.”

Mr. President, as I’m writing, tens of millions of children in China just like that teenage girl visiting the National Mall, as well as their parents and grandparents, are waiting for you to tell Hu Jintao, “Give Falun Gong freedom!”

Sherry Chang is a Chinese American who has been living in the United States for 19 years.

 

 

【大纪元2011年09月07日讯】被网友讽为挺谁谁死的中国国防大学战略教研室主任张召忠少将，在力挺利比亚独裁者卡扎菲四个多月后，终于把卡扎菲政权挺倒了。面对曾经被自己力挺过的偶像卡扎菲的惨败，张召忠在回答记者时说：

“我感触最深的，导致我预测不准的关键是：我被利比亚人民欺骗了，过于相信利比亚人民对卡扎菲的拥护，过于相信利比亚人民在镜头前的表情了，现在来看，我是被利比亚人民打败了——利比亚人民简直都是表演艺术家，明明在心里头对卡扎菲恨得要死，却非要在镜头前面表现出对卡扎菲的坚决拥护，这个表演水平太高了，这个对我是个教训。”

面对张召忠的被欺骗，大陆网友一片鄙夷声。可是回顾一下央视报导利比亚情况时的镜头，相信相当一部份爱看新闻的民众至今也还一头雾水。先前不是报导利比亚人民，以及那些忠于卡扎菲的部队都是异常地志气高昂吗？怎么说倒就倒了？

大家的疑惑与央视的报导不无关系。可是经常浏览海外网站的网友心里都明白，央视报导的画面，有些根本就不是支持卡扎菲的，而是支持反对派的人民以及反对派自己的部队，央视给人家来了个移花接木、改头换面，也就是说，支持反对派的画面被中共剪辑成支持卡扎菲的了。在这种情况下，民众得到的信息正好相反。实质上卡扎菲早已失去了民心，成为利比亚人民讨伐的对象。在这种情况下，张召忠不把卡扎菲挺死才怪呢？

所以从这个角度说，不是利比亚人民的表演艺术水平高，而是中央电视台的剪辑技术高。张召忠与其说是被利比亚人民打败了，还不如说是被央视打败。

这只是一个方面。像张召忠那么高地位的军事专家，他没有得到真实消息的渠道？他能对利比亚的真实情况真的什么都不知道？要是那样的话，央视在欺骗中国人民之前，首先欺骗的就是他张召忠。可是他要是知道真实情况呢，他要是知道利比亚的民心、军心以及利比亚的形势，早已注定卡扎菲政权必然完蛋，他还会替卡扎菲吆喝吗？话还不能那么说。这不是他想怎么做就怎么做的，央视都那样报导，他对利比亚战况的分析不与央视保持一致能行吗？再者说了，央视怎么敢做那样的颠倒报导？那不是中共上层决定的吗？卡扎菲是中共的老朋友，老朋友受到人民的声讨，中共能说那是声讨吗？所以央视就把反对派的声讨一改口说成是利比亚人民对卡扎菲的支持，反正中国人你也到不了利比亚，也听不懂外国话，人家兴高采烈地支持谁，你也不知道。

在这种情况下，作为中共军事专家的张召忠，他明知战况的实情他也不敢如实分析，他唯一的选择就剩下自欺欺人了。

所以我们得出的结论是，张召忠的被欺骗只有两种情况：一种是被中共欺骗，另一种则是被自己欺骗。

On Sept. 1, when many first-graders in China were excited about their first day of school, the six-year-old daughter of blind human rights lawyer Chen Guangcheng had to stay home because her parents are under house arrest.

Rights activist Liu Shasha said in a twitter message that she and several other activists went to Dongshigu Village in Linyi of Shandong Province, Chen’s hometown, on Aug. 26, and found that Chen and his family are still under house arrest.

Liu also said that the authorities hired some people to set up barriers around the village to prevent outsiders from entering. Liu published every move on her trip on twitter in case she got into any danger.

Liu said the director of Linyi Education Bureau met with them and said Chen’s daughter Kesi met school entrance requirements. He assured Liu that the county education bureau and the township government would make sure that the child gets to go to school.

Previously, authorities said that Chen did not register his daughter’s hukou residence permit. Liu told Radio Free Asia (RFA) that people believed Kesi had no residence registration, but a relative called and posted a scan of Kesi’s residence registration online showing that her registration was completed last year.

Chen gained worldwide prominence for exposing forced abortions and sterilizations that are part of the Chinese regime’s one-child policy. For this work he was sent to prison for over four years, and also suffered repeated torture. Upon his release on Sept. 9, 2010 he was put under house arrest and has been isolated from the rest of the world.

In June the U.S.-based China Aid Association published a letter by Chen’s wife Yuan Weijing describing prolonged beatings she and Chen endured and harassment the entire family has suffered at the hands of local officials.

Recently Chen has been subjected to violent beating again, Bob Fu, President of China Aid Association quoted a source as saying.

Ms. Pearl from Nanjing, one of a group of activists concerned about Chen, told RFA that the family’s situation has gotten worse since local authorities started the construction of a house near Chen’s residence. She said she and other activists would continue to monitor any developments.

chinareports@epochtimes.com