ABSTRACT

Zhang Danhong, a Chinese woman working as an editor at the Deutsche Welle radio

station in Germany, was suspended from her job in mid-August of 2008 following remarks

she had made in the media four days before the opening of the Beijing Olympics. She said

that ‘The Communist Party of China has more than any political force in the world

implemented Article 3 of the Declaration of Human Rights’; referring to the fact that the

Chinese authorities were pulling more than 400 million people out of poverty. This

remark, however, was met by a strong reaction from German society as well as various

overseas Chinese communities, i.e. political dissidents and Falun Gong practitioners.

They attacked Zhang as someone who was ‘courting’ China’s Communist Party regime, a

regime with one of the worst records on human rights in the world. A couple of days later,

Zhang was temporarily relieved of her duties. The suspension brought about an equally

strong backlash however. A group of German Sinologists signed a petition, asking the

radio station to restore Zhang’s position. Many people in China have also voiced sympathy

and concern for Zhang, accusing those in the West who chant the slogans of human rights

and freedom of speech of hypocrisy. Zhang’s case demonstrates the clash of different

conceptions of human rights that occurred as Beijing hosted the 2008 Olympic Games.