Editorials
Tuesday, December 28, 1999China’s repression
of Falun Gong groupIN trying, convicting and sentencing four organizers of the Falun Gong spiritual movement in one day, the Chinese Communist regime has demonstrated anew its contempt for human rights and world opinion. The sentences ranged from seven to 18 years for nothing more than the exercise of religious faith.The issue: Four organizers of the Falun Gong spiritual movement have been sentenced to seven to 18 years in prison.
The obviously trumped-up charges were organizing and using a cult to undermine laws, causing deaths and illegally obtaining and disseminating state secrets. But the accused's real crime was nothing more than successfully organizing a mass movement that the Communists have been unable to control. That is unacceptable in a totalitarian state.
The Jiang Zemin regime was stunned when Falun Gong succeeded in gathering 10,000 adherents for a peaceful demonstration in Beijing last April. A series of repressive measures followed, but Sunday's sentences were the harshest yet.
Falun Gong adherents are nothing like the youthful demonstrators for democracy who were crushed at Tiananmen Square 10 years ago. Many are middle-aged or older. Some hold responsible positions. They have no political demands except the right to practice their faith, which is drawn from Buddhism and Taoism and involves traditional meditation and exercises.
The four organizers who were tried Sunday range in age from 36 to 59. One was an official in the computer bureau of the national police ministry, one an engineer in a materials company under the railways ministry, one the manager of a Hong Kong subsidiary of a state nonferrous metals company and one, the only woman, headed the party committee of a large Beijing real estate company.
The Xinhua News Agency said the judges ruled that the defendants "organized and used the Falun Gong's evil cult organization to spread superstition and heresies and to deceive people, causing deaths." The four were convicted of having "plotted or directed" 78 protests.
They were also found guilty of stealing 37 state secrets and illegally netting more than $54 million in profits from proselytizing sessions and sales of Falun Gong literature. The charge of stealing state secrets is obvious nonsense. Spreading "superstition and heresies" smacks of the Middle Ages.
Falun Gong activists in the United States condemned the proceeding as a "show trial" that proved that "in this day and age there is no rule of law and spiritual freedom in China."
That is no exaggeration. The repression contrasts sharply with the situation on Taiwan, which has become far more democratic.
Nurses’ contracts
THE specter of Honolulu hospitals crippled by a nurses' strike over the holidays is fading with negotiations succeeding in reaching settlements at four hospitals and only one -- Kuakini Medical Center -- still in bargaining.
At St. Francis Hospital, nurses have ratified a contract giving them an 8 percent raise over three years, other benefits and no reduction in the nurse-patient ratio. The nurses also won provisions giving them a voice in staffing and nursing policies.
Similar provisions, described by union leaders as "ground-breaking and national trend-setting," were included in settlements with Kaiser Permanente, Queen's Medical Center and Kapiolani Medical Center.
In view of the financial difficulties the hospitals are encountering because of cutbacks in federal Medicare and Medicaid payments and other factors, the economic concessions could not have come easily.
However, some nurses considered the professional provisions at least as important as the pay raises. Many were concerned that erosion of the nurse-patient ratio could affect the care they are dedicated to providing.
Medicine and particularly hospitals will have to become more efficient to offset the enormous cost of ever-improving equipment and an aging population, among other problems. The challenge is to make economic survival possible without impairing patient care.
By demanding contract provisions that ensure nurse participation in staffing and nursing policies and that protect the nurse-patient ratio, the nurses may have benefited the patients as much as themselves.
State revenues
NEW state revenue projections show an increase from six months ago. That's quite a change after years of nominal growth at best and perennial calls for austerity. The latest state administration budget estimates project $145 million more by the end of fiscal 2003 than the estimates of last June. At that time a deficit of $124 million was projected unless action was taken to improve the state's fiscal condition.
The situation may be even better than the state figured. The state Council on Revenues is projecting revenue increases based on strengthening of the economy that were announced too late to be included in the administration financial plan.
If the need for austerity lessens, there will be no shortage of proposals for spending the additional money. Let's not give most of it to the government employee unions. There are many pressing needs that should take priority over pay raises.
Published by Liberty Newspapers Limited PartnershipRupert E. Phillips, CEO
John M. Flanagan, Editor & Publisher
David Shapiro, Managing Editor
Diane Yukihiro Chang, Senior Editor & Editorial Page Editor
Frank Bridgewater & Michael Rovner, Assistant Managing Editors
A.A. Smyser, Contributing Editor
