英国路透社是国际知名主流媒体，近期，路透社驻北京的记者Chris Buckley先生对中国的下岗民办教师和在岗公办教师的集体维权抗争活动进行了采访报道，民生观察向Chris Buckley先生介绍了全国多个省份的民办、公办教师的情况和教师代表联络方式。Chris Buckley先生的这篇名为《China’s rural teachers join rumble of unrest》（中国农村教师（民办教师）加入社会抗议）的文章已于2009年2月6日正式对外发表，民生观察今天收到了这篇报道的全文。
在这篇文章中，记者重点对农村乡村教师，主要是那些被辞退的民办教师问题的由来、教师们近期的维权抗争活动进行了报道，采访了山东民师代表陈明、江苏民师代表朱军等人。文章同时还报道了湖南新宁乡村公办教师罢课活动，并对全国乡村教师维权活动及由此引发的冲突进行了描述和评论。在文章中，记者介绍了民生观察工作室及刘飞跃的相关维权工作，并对许志永先生等人进行了采访。
民生观察工作室多年来致力于关注、推动下岗民办教师问题的解决，为此撰写了有关民师问题的调查报告，其中我们调查撰写的《湖北民师调查报告》现已在全国十多个省民办教师中流传。我们的维权活动得到了全国十多个省民办教师和代课教师的理解、支持、信任，我们的教师维权活动已推广到了全国。
就在今天我们撰写这份新闻稿时，德国明镜周刊驻京记者又打来电话了解民办教师的情况。我们非常欢迎国际媒体对民办教师问题的关注，我们更欢迎国内媒体和政府等各方面关注解决民办教师、代课教师问题。2009年，民生观察将加大下岗教师的维权力度，希望能为这一全国性的问题的早日解决贡献我们的一份力量。
民生观察工作室
2009-2-13
附路透社的报道：
China’s rural teachers join rumble of unrest
13:20 06Feb2009 China’s rural teachers join rumble of unrest By Chris BuckleyBEIJING, Feb 6 (Reuters) – They are old, angry and have mobilephones, and they worry China’s protest-wary leaders.Teachers across rural China, many long retired or forced fromclassrooms, have joined a recent surge of protests, with hundreds,sometimes thousands, besieging local governments to demand bettertreatment and denounce official privilege.This week teachers in Xinning county in the central province ofHunan signed a petition demanding wages, pensions and health care, anddecrying government officials’ repeated pay rises, said Xu Disu, one ofthe organisers. In December, hundreds besieged the county governmentoffice there, he said.”The officials promise to solve our problems but they never do, sowe’ll keep petitioning and petitioning until they do,” said Xu, aretired elementary school teacher in his late sixties.”I am old and I’m so angry. I’ll keep doing this till I pass away ifthey don’t listen,” he said by phone on Friday.This rumble of teacher unrest across China’s rural centre shows thestrains on China’s ruling Communist Party as growth slows, jobs shrinkand public rancour stirs.And all in a year when the Party faces the sensitive 20thanniversary of the military crackdown on pro-democracy protests in andaround Tiananmen Square on June 4, 1989. [ID:nPEK272956]The teachers’ grievances festered for decades. But their reach andcoordination have grown lately, helped as the Internet and mobile phonesextend into once-isolated villages.”Before it was teachers in one township joining up. But now they’reuniting across counties, cities and even provinces,” said Liu Feiyue,who runs a one-man rights advocacy office, Civil Rights and LivelihoodWatch, in central Hubei province.”The protests will continue in 2009, because the financial crisisgives the government more excuse to put off a solution.” “A HARMONIOUS SOCIETY”The aged teachers are part of a mosaic of local discontentunsettling officials. A Chinese Academy of Social Sciences report latelast year said there were over 80,000 protests, riots and other “massincidents” in 2007, compared to over 60,000 in 2006.Last year “did not allow for optimism”, it added.Nor does 2009, say many officials and experts.Liu estimated that nationwide last year there were over 1,000sit-ins and mass petitions each mobilising hundreds or thousands offormer rural teachers, a jump on past years. One sit-in in eastern Shandong province in December drew about 4,000to the provincial Party headquarters, he said, and an earlier one innorthwest Shaanxi province attracted 2,000. These numbers are difficultto check, but pictures on Liu’s website (www.msguancha.com) showedhundreds of protesters in Shaanxi.Recently, too, growing numbers of working teachers have struck forhigher pay in dozens of places, including 6,000 in Loudi, Hunan, inDecember, according to Liu and other reports.But this wave of demonstrations, petitions and strikes also showsthe limits of grassroots unrest, making it a distracting and nettlesomeworry for leaders, but far from a mortal threat.While the mostly retired agitators rail at local officials, theyproclaim loyalty to the Communist Party and its leaders. And while theirorganisational strength has grown, their grievances and efforts remainmostly local, avoiding bigger political demands. This is no revolutionin the making.”I don’t know what crime I committed,” said Zhu Jun, 61, a formerteacher from eastern Jiangsu province who said she was recently detainedby police for leading protests there.”We only want national leaders to keep their promises. We only wanta harmonious society,” she said, echoing one of President Hu Jintao’skey phrases. MANY GRIEVANCESMost of the aggrieved teachers are in their 60s or older and poorlyeducated, and took up jobs as “community” (minban) teachers in thecountryside in Mao Zedong’s era when there were very few fully-trainedones available.From the 1980s, China began to spend more state money on ruralschools but also demanded teachers on the state payroll have properqualifications.Many who failed to scramble into the new hierarchy say they wereabandoned without pensions, health care or dignity after giving theirbest years to poorly paid teaching. Many also say officials handedstate-funded teaching jobs to kin and cronies, ignoring qualificationsand seniority.The ex-teachers said their anger with official privilege andcorruption, as much as economic hardship, drove them to mobilise.”We see all the corruption and how they (officials) make all themoney, and that leaves us feeling out of balance,” said Chen Ming, 62,from Shandong, who said he was held by police for 10 days last month forhelping to organise demonstrations and applying in Beijing to hold aprotest march for 5,000 teachers.Liu, the rights advocate, estimated that about 1 million teachersacross a dozen provinces were forced out by the changes.But the aged teachers are not the government’s only worry.This week, a senior agricultural official, Chen Xiwen, said 20million rural migrant workers had lost their jobs in the economicslowdown. He said officials should not use force to stifle potentialunrest.That may be difficult. Officials also face volatile protests,strikes and mass petitions over land disputes, corruption, police andcourt abuses and pollution.But the real challenge to state control, some say, comes not fromthe sheer numbers of brief, local protests, but the longer-termlikelihood that citizens will yoke their grievances to broader politicaldemands.”The financial crisis is really just a background factor to thesebroader social changes,” said Xu Zhiyong, a Beijing law lecturer andrights advocate.(Editing by Nick Macfie and Dean Yates)((chris.buckley@reuters.com; +86-10-66271261))Keywords: CHINA UNREST/Friday, 06 February 2009 13:20:52RTRS [nPEK96374 ] {C}ENDS This email was sent to you by Thomson Reuters, the global news and information company.Any views expressed in this message are those of the individual sender, except where the sender specifically states them to be the views of Thomson Reuters.
