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China Releases Cyber Dissident

Posted by timothy on from the no-hard-feelings-eh dept.

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."

7 of 470 comments (clear)

  1. "Political Satire" by Raindance · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This seems pretty high-profile and has piqued my interest; anyone have a link (ideally translated) to the "Political Satire" that was good enough to land this young woman in prison for a year?

    RD

  2. It's called compare and contrast (ie, not OT) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "Mitnick was held without bail for over two years before sentencing: he has said that he set some kind of United States record by being held for four and a half years without a bail hearing, while also held in solitary confinement for eight months 'in order to prevent a possible nuclear strike being initiated by me from a prison payphone'."
    Kevin_Mitnick

  3. Re:Both sides of the pond? by release7 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    And don't forget the fact that China has MFN (most favored nation) trade status despite the blatant disregard for human rights. Then compare this to our embargoes against Cuba, whose only crime is having a lot of anti-Castro supporters in Florida who would vote against Bush for lifting any sanctions on the island nation.

    --

    <a href="http://www.joblessjimmy.com">Work is dumb and so is Jobless Jimmy.</a>

  4. other points of view by Grond · · Score: 4, Interesting

    As the article and summary both mention, the release comes a week before the Premiere's visit to the US. An article in Der Spiegel claims, however, that the release was primarily motivated by the visit of German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.

    An AP version of the story mentions Schroeders visit (which the Reuters story linked to by the summary does not), but does not go as far as claiming as Der Spiegel does that "[the release] is a gift for Schroeder" (my translation). That particular quote is attributed to Frank Lu of the Information Center for Democracy and Human Rights, a Hong Kong-based watchdog group that is a primary source for both the AP and Spiegel articles.

  5. Simpleton by GCP · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You can't think of a better way to govern that many people than an authoritarian regime with no elections that proclaims itself to be the "People's Government" and has imprisoned and murdered tens of millions of people for disagreeing?

    Not a very deep thinker are you? The US and EU combined are about half the population of China. Do you mean to say that if our populations were simply to double, our best option would be to abandon democracy, rule of law, elections, free markets, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, etc., and demonstrate that anyone who disagreed would end up dead? That's really the best you can come up with?

    You sound like a product of Chinese (re)education.

    Of course, you could argue that we can do it because we don't have to have one government controlling all of those people. We have several governments, each covering only a portion of those people, each subject to independent replacement every election day.

    Of course China doesn't have to do it all with one government either. The Tibetans, Uighurs, Taiwanese, Hong Kongese...would love to take some of the "burden" off those poor overworked murderers in Beijing. But Beijing is just like you. They can't think of a better way for them to keep governing than by doing what they're doing, either.

    --
    "Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
  6. China vs,. US by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting
    Someone explain to me how
    • the US
    • is never right about anything it does,
    • Europe calls it a "crime against humanity" when the US executes 71 people in 2002
    • groups like our faithful slashdot posters and Amnesty International constantly bitch and whine about how evil the US is, and
    • basically ALL the problems of the world are America's fault
    and,
    • China (in recent times)
    • builds the great firewall of China,
    • suppresses free speech,
    • executes 1,000+ people in 2002 (over 14x the US total)
    • conquers countries and actually FORMALLY integrates them into China,
    • moves people in forced migrations, and
    • commits various other human right abuses,
    and the our "right-thinking left-wing friends" never say shit about it?

    I realize anti-Americanism is popular, but ...

  7. You don't have to look at China... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    or even Guantanamo Bay... last week in Miami there were hundreds of people locked up for protesting at the anti-FTAA demonstrations, many still there struggling for bail money.

    When people came to protest at the jail, the police simply proceeded to arrest the protestors again to get them out of the way.

    If you want an example of a "police state" just look at the USA right now, you don't need to look as far as China.

    more arrests and jail info at
    http://www.ftaaimc.org/ and http://www.stopftaa.org