Embassy intervenes to aid Russian wife in divorce

By Chu Meng 

A Russian mother of two, who was repeatedly abused by her wealthy Chinese husband, has divorced with the help of the Russian embassy.

She was awarded 300,000 yuan in compensation by the court on Tuesday in Beijing.

Korableva, whose given name is protected in the court record, suffered a ruptured spleen and severe bruises after being attacked during fierce arguments with her husband, Liu Jue, at their multi-million-yuan villa in Shunyi district on May 10, 2010.

Liu, 39, a businessman and former boxer, was charged with assault and ordered by the Beijing Second Intermediate People’s Court to pay 300,000 yuan in compensation to his wife.

He was detained shortly after the trial and remains at the Shunyi jail while he awaits sentencing. Liu may face up to five years in prison.

Korableva, 31, has a slim build and fair hair and skin. She said that despite the divorce, she intends to remain in Beijing with her sons, ages 3 and 9. Originally from a remote and impoverished Russian village, she has been living in Beijing for the last decade.

“I met my ex-husband at a dance club and restaurant in Heilongjiang Province. We fell in love in 1999 when I was 20. I was still a simple girl at that time, wanting to find a rich husband in China. I married him and moved to Beijing in 2000. But I don’t think I could adapt to a life back in my old village,” she said.

Their marriage was fine until 2007, when Korableva says Liu began developing a temper problem.

“It started with him beating my sons over the head with a scabbard while they were reading their primary school books. He insisted it was his way of educating and wouldn’t let me interfere,” she said.

Gradually, Liu progressed to beating her using sticks and belts during their arguments – especially after Korableva said she wanted to return to work.

“I was getting less and less respect in the family. I needed to be able to support myself, my sons and my parents, who are also living in Beijing,” she said. “I could easily find a job dancing or teaching language.”

“I am filled with regret,” Liu, a manager at Hummer Club, told Xinhua News Agency. “I hope to compensate my wife. I can give her the villa, the cars and money. Just for the forgiveness. All of our arguments were caused by some domestic trifles.”

Liu Weimin, a family law professor from Peking University, said Korableva is not alone in her plight. Statistics show that domestic violence is a problem in 30 percent of Chinese families. The statistic falls to 20 percent in mixed marriages.

According to data from the municipal bureau of civil affairs, the number of mixed marriages between a Chinese national and foreigner in Beijing has grown steadily since 2000.

“About 1,000 mixed couples tie the knot every year in Beijing. In 2009, the number was 1,269. There were 88 divorces among mixed couples the same year,” the law professor said.

Sergei Razov, the Russian ambassador to China, said Chinese police were lazy in their mediation of mixed couples’ disputes.

“Domestic violence is ignored or seen as trivial domestic affairs by Chinese police. Korableva had reported to the police several times before filing a criminal case, but no one paid real attention. In Russia, husbands normally receive much more severe punishment,” the ambassador said.

In the past decade, mixed marriages between Russian women and Chinese men have been common in the northeast.

Near Shulan, Jilin Province – three hours from Changchun – there is a village full of Russian brides. In Sihe Village, 90 percent of the rural men married foreign women, mostly Russians.

Liu Weimin said there were three reasons for the popularity of Russian brides. Russia has only 88 men for every 100 women. Moreover, many Russian men are deemed unmarriageable because of excessive drinking and aggression. Most Russian girls also consider life in China to be economically secure. Moreover, whereas China limits families to one child, Russia is paying its women to have more children.

One website, promoting itself as a matchmaking site for single Russian women, has 436 members eager to find a foreign spouse.

Liu Weimin said he would like to remind the young women that “finding independent economic support is very important for a foreign wife in China, especially those from less developed countries. If they are suffering from regular violence at home, they are better off contacting the embassy instead of the police.”

Embassy celebrates Turkish Children’s day with the disadvantaged

Turkish children celebrated their National Sovereignty and Children's Day with Chinese children at the Turkish Embassy. Photos by Li Zhixin

By Li Zhixin

The Turkish Embassy hosted a party for disadvantaged children last Saturday in commemoration of Turkey’s National Sovereignty and Children’s Day.

Some 50 children from Sun Village, a foster home and school for children whose parents are in prison, attended the barbecue party on the embassy grounds that included a magic show, dancing and games with Turkish children.

Embassy rejects reports of Iranian drug smugglers’ execution

By Zhao Hongyi

The Iranian Embassy rejected reports circulating the past couple of weeks that nationals convicted of drug smuggling in China have been executed.

“Since three years ago, a total of 46 Iranians have been charged with trading in illegal drugs in China. Most of these people were not drug smugglers but were in fact ordinary airline passengers who were unaware o the narcotics packed in their luggage,” Iran’s Mehr News Agency quoted an embassy official as saying.

The embassy released a statement last Friday saying that “no Iranian has been arrested in the past year for drug smggling, or executed for that matter.” It said “Tehran’s embassy in Beijing is determined to defend the rights and interests of all Iranians residing in China.

The statement said a number of Iranian detainees received death sentences two years ago, but that the verdicts were still on appeal at the appellate court in Beijing. When contacted for further comment, a consul said he had no knowledge of the issue.

The embassy’s press officer Mohammad Ali Ziaei declined to comment on the “sensitive issue,” but willingly discussed another charge against Iranian nationals: an attack Tuesday against the search engiBaidu. Media reported that the site was defaced by hackers who left a message saying, “This site has been hacked by the Iranian Cyber Army.

Ziaei said the Iranian government condemned the attack and said it went against Iran’s pro-China foreign policy. “Iran condemns these actions and hopes it won’t bring any negative impact on bilateral relations,” he said, adding that perpetrators could also be foreign hackers operating from Iran.

Baidu was attacked Tuesday morning and was inaccessible for the rest of the day. Netizens said the hackers tampered with the search engine’s Domain Name System (DNS), redirecting traffic to another site. Baidu’s gineers later confirmed that the attack came from  hackers in Iran.

British official warns Iran on embassy staffer arrest

LONDON, England (CNN) – “There will be consequences” if Iran mistreats a British Embassy employee who was arrested in Tehran, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Sunday, as cracks began to appear in the Iranian leadership.

“The whole of the European Union and actually the international community more broadly has been absolutely united in saying that there’s no place for this sort of intimidation or harassment and that there will be consequences if it continues,” Miliband said on a BBC Sunday morning talk show.

Miliband said he is angry about the treatment of the embassy staff members but wants to keep diplomatic channels open.

“It’s very important that my anger, my cold anger about the way our staff have been treated — Iranians, in this case — doesn’t turn into a rhetorical volley to the Iranian regime, because that doesn’t do anything for our people or for reform in Iran,” he said.

The embassy employee in custody, who has been threatened with trial in Iran, has done nothing wrong, the minister said.

“He is an honorable, patriotic Iranian who has been working in an open, transparent way for the United Kingdom,” Miliband said.

Another employee was to be released Sunday, Miliband said the Iranian Foreign Ministry had told the British Embassy.

Iran detained nine local staff members of the British Embassy in Tehran in the wake of widespread protests over Iran’s disputed June 12 presidential vote. Election officials said hardline incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won in a landslide.

Most of the embassy workers have been freed. The one expected to be released Sunday would be the eighth let go and would not face charges, Miliband said.

Iran also released a journalist, Washington Times reporter Iason Athanasiadis, government-run Press TV reported Sunday.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hassan Qashqavi confirmed the release, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.

“Police had arrested him because of his unprofessional conduct in connection with the recent disturbances,” Qashqavi said, adding that “Iason had previously been declared persona non grata because of similar activities. The first time he had used a British passport.”

Athanasiadis’ arrest was reported June 23, with no reason given.

Athanasiadis, who also goes by the name Jason Fowden, holds dual British and Greek passports.

The Washington Times did not immediately respond to CNN’s requests for comment. The Foreign Office in London said Sunday that it had no information about the case.

The disputed election has led to unusually public splits among Iran’s religious leadership.

Top clerics and seminary students in Iran’s holy city of Qom came out Saturday against the results of the election.

The Qom clergy, seen as the backbone of the nation’s religious establishment, said in a statement that the election was skewed.

The statement is a significant strike against Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who sides with Ahmadinejad, the incumbent.

The clerics’ statement was issued by the Association of Teachers and Researchers of the Qom seminary school. It was released the same day that a former Iranian president, who backed the top opposition leader in the election, delivered strong and carefully worded support of the grass-roots protest movement.

Former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani — who heads the group responsible for appointing or removing the supreme leader and is a supporter of opposition leader Mir Hossein Moussavi — said he doubted that “any wakened consciousness would be satisfied with the resulting situation,” according to the semiofficial Iranian Labor News Agency.

The controversial election prompted two weeks of widespread street protests and civil unrest that led to the death of at least 20 demonstrators and the arrest of more than 1,000, according to Iranian state-run media. The numbers of casualties and arrests could not be independently verified because the government has severely restricted international media coverage.

The clerics of Qom said Iranians had reason to protest.

“It is astonishing that an election, which in plain sight of all, extensively used public funds in order to promote one of the candidates and employed government power to bring in votes. The [state-run] national media was continuously working with different excuses to benefit and openly promote the advantages of one candidate only,” the statement said.

The statement went on to challenge the handling of ballots during the election, saying that the observers who were legally required to be present before the ballots’ sealing were allowed into most voting stations only after the boxes had already been sealed.

“Therefore we were faced with situations of having more votes than voters,” the statement said. “It is very unfortunate that with the great haste in the announcement, there was considerable political capital invested from the supreme leadership.”

The government has responded that polling stations could have had more voters than residents because Iranians were allowed to vote at any polling station they chose; Iranians who were traveling on Election Day could have explained the difference.

The clerics’ statement also referred to “respected candidates whose rights were violated,” singling out individuals such as Moussavi, whom many analysts had expected to win the election.

Rafsanjani, a key politician in the Islamic republic, has become increasingly vocal about the election results.

“People from across the country participated in the elections with excitement,” ILNA quoted him as saying Saturday. “But unfortunately the events that occurred after that and the difficulties created for some left a bitter taste, and I don’t think that any wakened consciousness would be satisfied with the resulting situation.”

He referred to the recent expressions of opinions across the country regarding the election crisis as a reflection of a power struggle “at the highest levels of the system.”

“I hope that with proper management and fortitude, in the next few days, we can be witnesses to the betterment of the situation, resolution of the difficulties and the decrease in the number of the families waiting for their loved ones,” Rafsanjani said. “We must think about safeguarding the long-term interests and benefits of the system.”

While the protests over the election results mostly dissolved last week, those dissatisfied with the system continue to chant “Allahu Akbar” — God is great — from the rooftops in Tehran. Based on amateur footage viewed by CNN, the nighttime chanting went into its 21st consecutive day Friday.

Last week, Iran’s election authority, the Guardian Council, said it considered the election outcome a closed case

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/07/05/iran.election/index.html