Slashdot Mirror
Complete Net Cafe Shutdown After Beijing Fire
lunchlady doris writes: "The BBC has this story that tells of a fire in an internet cafe in Beijing that killed 24 people. The mayor responded to this tragedy by shutting down all 2,400 cafes in the city, most of which are operated illegally. Only 200 cafes will be allowed to reopen, pending municipal regulation. Needless to say, the netizens of Beijing are pissed and see this as a move to quash the limited access to the net that the Chinese people currently have."
Yep.
A free communist state is better than a free capitalist state.
An oppressive capitalist dictatorship is worse than an oppressive communist dictatorship.
Any oppressive dictatorship is worse than and free state.
What's your point?
> high death toll on locked emergency exits. " This > is all there is to the story.
That's not all there is. The point of the story being on /. is that the Bejing mayor is using the fact that the building was an Internet cafe as an excuse to crack down on *all* Internet cafes. This is obviously something they would like to do, and the argument looks at first like:
1. Cafe crowded and not following safety procedures because of lack of regulation
2. Cafe burns down, terrible loss of life.
3. Regulate Internet cafes so they follow safety prcedures.
Which in theory is great. The worry is that if the city starts regulating the cafes, due to past behaviour it's quite likely the authorities will also try to use the move to curtail Internet use and content.
If you think all there is to the story that a building has burned down and lots of people, your a complete moron of the highest order.
/obviously/ heinous crimes as *asking* for democratic elections!).
The unelected communist government oppresses the people by torturing and killing them.
In order to maintain their power, they are preventing a billion people from being free to communicate with each other and people outside China. The unelected government decide what the populous can read, view and even talk about. Which paintings they can look at, what poetry they can recite. What web pages they view. What news they hear.
If you publicly disagree with them, they put you in prison, torture you or have you executed. Just think about that.
No one but a naive fool could believe they are shutting down all the cybercafes for heath and safety reasons. Chinese high density houses, factories and restaurants have equally as bad heath and safety. Chinese hospitals aren't much better!
China has an APPALLING HUMAN RIGHTS RECORD. They RUN THEIR OWN PEOPLE OVER IN TANKS. They don't give a fuck about public safety. If they did they would not TORTURE PEOPLE or KILL THEM for committing crimes against the state (such
If you can't see the significance of an oppressive, cruel regime shutting down one of the few places where it's citizens can subvert the government and gain access to unfiltered information about the rest of the world (and how much happier and wealthier we all are in the west) then you don't deserve your own damn freedoms.
You can better your bottom dollar that the only cybercafe's which are allowed to open are ones that tow the government line and ensure they have the proper filters set up.