Socialist Party Australia - CWI members launch new China website

Defence campaign for imprisoned metalworkers in Liaoyang
Laurence Coates, Rättvisepartiet Socialisterna, CWI Sweden
Chinaworker.org is a new website started by members and supporters of the CWI. The aim is to publicise and support workers’ struggles against capitalist ”reforms”, privatisation and job losses in China and to raise awareness over the political and economic processes there.

The CWI is also taking up the case of the Liayang Two – Yao Fuxin and Xiao Yunliang – imprisoned for their part in huge workers’ protests in Liaoyang, north-eastern China in 2002, during which 80,000 workers demonstrated and steps were taken to form an independent trade union. For details of the case, and a model resolution, see the article – Free the Liaoyang Two – on this site.

31 local councillors from Sweden are among those who have sent letters of protest to the Chinese authorities in recent days. The signatories include the social democratic council leader in the northern city of Luleå. The initiative in this instance came from CWI member Jonas Brännberg, city councillor for Rättvisepartiet Socialisterna in Luleå. The schools students’ organisation Elevkampanjen, at its Stockholm district meeting on 30 August, also sent a statement calling for the release of the Liaoyang Two to the Chinese Ambassador to Sweden and the Ministry of Justice in Beijing.

”Yao and Xiao are victims of a frame-up by the local authorities in Lioayang – officials who hypocritically claim to represent the working class”, said Tony Saunois, Secretary of the Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI). ”Workers and trade unionists internationally must take up the case and demand their immediate release,” he said.