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China Releases Cyber Dissident
Ridgelift writes "Reuters UK has the story on the release of three 'cyber dissidents' just one week before a trip by visit by Premier Wen Jiabao to the United States. One of the dissidents, 23-year-old Liu Di, aka the 'Stainless Steel Mouse,' had been detained since November 2002. She wrote political satire about the ruling Communist Party and posted messages in Internet chatrooms calling for the release of online dissidents. She was never formally charged, but kept at Qincheng Prison for over a year."
...if not for the fact that it's probably just a PR move. It seems like every time the U.S. has something to do with China, human rights becomes the issue of the day. By releasing a couple of dissidents, China can say "Look, we respect human rights." It rings very hollow.
You have just inferred that the Guantanamo Bay prisoners are terrorists. How do you know this? Has a judge told you so? Perhaps it was a politician who told you so? Wouldn't being imprisoned by a politician make one a political prisoner?
Before we get all high and mighty, and conclude that we in the United States are so much better, superior, or luckier, remember about the prisoners the US is holding RIGHT NOW in Guantanamo Bay.
These prisoners of the US Government were held for a year or more.
Let's clean up our own act before we get all high and mighty about the Chinese, heh?
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
When I hear about things like this it reminds of just how unusual and fragile freedom is in the world. It also makes me fearful because so few people in America are dedicated to the preservation of freedom. Instead they're either disinterested in what goes on or dedicated to furthering some ill-concieved and short sighted political agenda that they usually don't even understand. The rights and freedoms this country was founded upon are far more important to our collective future than red-herring issues like abortion. The abortion debate iself is little more than a battle-front in the cultural wars between the loony left and the religious right. As long as there are unwanted children being conceived abortion will exist regardless of whether it is legal or not. Arguing about something that cannot be stopped is futile and even counterproductive. Its like arguing about how people should wipe their asses. Its impossible to force anyone to follow whatever conclusions are reached, so why argue about it? Laws against abortion will work about as well as laws against Marijuana or Alcohol. Marijuana can be easily grown, alcohol can be easily fermented and distilled, and an abortion is only a coat-hanger away. The laws regarding all are in reality little more than proclamations of what the government would prefer you do. People get all worked up over abortion because it is a stand-in for all the other issues that don't get argued about directly. Ideological points that have been disproven or discredited but which the left or right doesn't want to let go of. It doesn't suprise me that so many people have forsaken the political process. If the choice is between a closet communist and a someone who is either a theocrat or owned by a bunch of fat-cats, there isn't really any way to make a good choice. So people don't vote and in doing so forfeit the very power that MUST be held by the people for democracy to truly exist. Every time a person disinvolves themselves from the political process they're letting the fate of this country be determined by idiots and ideologues. People who are either stupid or crazy or both.
If things keep going like this then America is doomed to die from collapse from within. Unfortunately for all our "friends" in other places who would like to see that happen, America's collapse will likely pull them in with it, or at least place them upon the very precipice of collapse just like the collapse of Rome sent all of Western Europe into the dark ages, only this time on a global scale.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
I notice people are willing to fight for freedom for the Iraqis, for the Chinese, for every country imagineable but in the USA we want a police state to protect ourselves from the terrorists? I'm confused, someone please explain this to me. We pass the patriot act, and make it possible to toss anyone in prison who even resembles a terrorist with no trial, nothing. I'd be worried about the USA.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
Why are so many Americans in prison, under third world medical conditions? The war on drugs, primarily, but also idiotic minimum sentencing laws. Where China executes people as a "deterrence", the US lock them up for decades for the same reason, while still retaining a provably flawed capital punishment system. And, by the way, according to Amnesty International:
There are many other very serious social issues in the US (insufficient health care, police brutality, religious fundamentalism, sexual hysteria ..), and just waving the finger at China and shouting "Woo, we're so great" is not going to cut it. The US needs to get serious about cleaning up at home before trying to impose itself as the world police elsewhere. Getting rid of your idiot president would be a good start.
You sound like a product of Chinese (re)education.
Which is exactly why those in power in China don't want the Chinese people exposed to free thinking and the outside world.
Quick story. Six hundred years ago, China kicked ass in pretty much everything. Zheng He's fleet of ships discovered the world in Junks that were probably 500 years ahead of anything anyone else had* - so when they got back, China decided the world had nothing to offer them and prmptly closed up the borders... Anyway, my point is that Chinas leaders have a history of overly controlling it's people and it's a strategy that clearly doesn't work. In those 600 years, the world has caught up and China is renowned for cheap labour. Nice going guys. Imagine where both the world and China would be today if the borders had been open and knowledge flowed freely. Imagine the world a couple of hundred years from now - that's where we might have been if a bunch of old men hadn't got it wrong.
China has a billion people, many of whom could do amazing things given the opportunity, but some small minded politicians are too scared of losing power money control and face, that they oppress and brainwash the masses into thinking it's for the best. Nice plan, but it won't work for ever - it never works for ever.
I hope the Chinese people take control back soon, so China can regain some of its former glory.
* Had floodable compartments for fishing / washing, navigated with a compass, huge hull size, etc, etc.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
Actually, we do. A lot. It just never gets to the news. I'm too young, but my parents have spoken up on every conflict there was.
In the case of Iraq, Amnesty International had a huge body of knowledge about the atrocities committed by Saddam.
Unfortunately, when Ronald Reagan decided Saddam was the good guy, and sent Donald Rumsfeld to shake hands with him, it gets really, really hard to say otherwise. Furthermore, when Saddam gassed the Kurds at Halabja, the Reagan administration blamed Iran, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, and voted down every condemnation of Iraq, but inside and outside the US.
OK, but that's history. How about today? Now that Saddam's gone, there are other dictators that should follow. For example Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan. The democratic opposition had great hopes when America entered Central Asia. Unfortunately, you let them down. Islam Karimov is now one of the cherished allies in the "coalition". With US support, he has semented his power. Perhaps it is not too much to ask that you at least stop supporting the worst dictators on the planet, and let the people have a chance to get rid of them themselves?
Uhm, no, you missed the point. It's not anti-americanism to tell America it's wrong. OK, you can find anti-americanism, and it is a fair amount of around, on the form: "America is headed for the quagmire (hehe)". But it is not anti-americanism to say that "America is headed for the quagmire, and we have to work with america to change its course". The latter is far more common than the former.
The difference between America and China is that America is a democracy and it has a free press. Those two things should make it possible to get through to America far more easily than to China. So, the reason why America is addressed is that there are certain values it tends to uphold. That's not anti-americanism, to the contrary, it is recognition. But it also demands of you that you realize that your current President is wiping his ass with your constitution, and that you get rid of him. Nobody else can do that but you.
Employee of Inrupt, Project Release Manager and Community Manager for Solid
Odd how China releases these 'cyber dissidents' less than a week before Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visits the US.
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
asking such a goverment to stop it's actions (especially of this kind) online where it may be viewable from outside of China is a no-no.
I can only assume that by "no-no", you mean "a human right, which is viciously punished by the thugs who seized China in a putsch in the late 1940's".
But still it's hard for us outsiders to see this as something to put someone in prison for.
That would be because it's not something to put someone in prison for, even under the "laws" that the commie thugs claim to follow. Hypocrisy abounds in communist countries.
China does not live under the rule of law, it is under the yoke of the Mao dynasty, which has vastly outdone all previous Chinese dynasties for the brutality it has shown to the Chinese people.
Say what you like about the Ming's corruption, they never murdered thirty million people through deliberate starvation.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Secondly, China's former glory was based on exactly the kind of repressive system that is in place today: indeed at the height of China's power, the repression was even more extreme. None of China's peoples, apart from a tiny elite, ever had any power. The time in history when power was distributed a little more widely was during the Cultural Revolution: not exactly a ringing endorsement for student power, Chinese style.
Does this mean that I approve of China's system? Absolutely not. But I do recognise that it is nonsense (except as a propoganda ploy) to demand that China adopt a system that would lead to its self destruction. If China's current economic progress can be leveraged to directly benefit the population at large (and people become overwhelmingly satisified with their lives personally) tolerating most forms of dissent may become practicable. As things stand today, allowing political pluralism would probably result in violent upheaval in the short term interests of nobody.
China's problems are complex.
Actually, it's easy to find specific allegations of torture. It's also quite easy to find that the international and US courts have no control over guantanamo bay prisoners. And it's easy to find this from multiple sources. To me the very fact that the US government doesn't want courts to get involved signifies they're likely doing stuff that can not see the light of day. If there's nothing to hide, why are they hiding it?
Ofcourse, you could argue that these are all lies and hearsay, and that the US government would never ever use torture. But it is a fact that prisoners on guantanamo bay are held illegally (according to the geneva convention they should be pow's, but the US claims they aren't), and that they do not have due process rights (inalienable human right). If the US is breaking the law anyway in their detainment of these prisoners, would it be such a stretch to imagine them using torture as well?
There is such a thing as psychological torture by the way. If you're being held without accusation, without promise of release, ever (despite that the war in afghanistan is over, pow's haven't been returned or formally accused of a crime), and without even access to counsel or basically the outside world, would you feel ok? I'd feel downright miserable in such circumstances, even if they did not lay a hand on me. The geneva convention's definition of torture is "cruel and unusual treatment", which does not need to have a physical component involved.
I see no need for guantanamo bay. If the people there did something wrong, the regular US judicial system should be able to handle it. If they didn't do something wrong (and no, fighting for your country is not a crime), they should be freed. The very existance of guantanamo bay is a slap in the face of justice.
Typical Anit-Chinese-without-rationale Troll. Well, I'll bite.
... by the thugs who seized China in a putsch in the late 1940's".
I can only assume that by "no-no", you mean "a human right, which is viciously punished...
Where in the world would it be safe to speak of things sensitive to the government, and not be hassled in one way or the other? Perhaps pulling the offender into prison without reason seems somewhat "brutal", but how is it different from making up some fancy charges and then still putting the person into prison? What, "terrorism"?
On what basis are you saying that they are "thugs"?
That would be because it's not something to put someone in prison for, even under the "laws" that the commie thugs claim to follow.
And you bet that hasn't happened in places, say, the United States?
Hypocrisy abounds in communist countries.
Hypocrisy is in every political group. Why does it only apply to communist countries? Or does the term "hypocrisy" only apply to those that you dislike, and everything else, no matter how self-contradicting it is, is all correct if the person/group in question is those of your liking?
China does not live under the rule of law, it is under the yoke of the Mao dynasty, which has vastly outdone all previous Chinese dynasties for the brutality it has shown to the Chinese people.
How is it under the rule of the "Mao Dynasty"? The current leaders are apparently quite different from Mao in their attitude and actions. China isn't even strictly a communist country now, though it still claims it is.
Don't quote me on this.