Slashdot Mirror
A Single Re-Tweet Lands Chinese Woman in Labor Camp
lee1 writes "A woman in China has been sentenced to a year of 're-education' in a labor camp for the crime of 'disrupting social order' after retweeting a joke on Twitter (which is entirely banned in China, but popular nonetheless). Cheng Jianping had repeated a Twitter comment suggesting that nationalist protesters smash Japan's pavilion at the Shanghai Expo, adding the words 'Charge, angry youth.' At the time, China and Japan were feuding over a group of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea, and groups of young Chinese had been demonstrating against Japan, smashing Japanese products; the tweet amounted to gentle chiding of the protesters. Ms. Cheng may also have been targeted because she is a human rights activist: she had signed petitions calling for the release of China's jailed Nobel Peace Prize winner Liu Xiaobo. She has been detained in the past for several other 'crimes,' including criticizing China's Communist Party."
If you are a political activist in any country (not just China), don't post things publicly that are unrelated to your cause. Don't post things electronically that are or could be considered illegal, or be used as blackmail material. Remember that you are not representing yourself anymore, you are representing your cause. Everything you say and do will be put under a microscope, and the internet never forgets and never forgives mistakes.
Now that that's out of the way: China, you suck.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
you know, the snide comments "well, its almost just as bad/ the same/ worse in the usa/ uk/ western nation"
no
it actually isn't
when you confuse hyperbole and reality, you are no longer commenting intelligently, you are merely broadcasting your ignorance
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Who cares about the human cost as long as we can continue to get cheap electronics, right?
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Anonymity exists for a reason. Not using it if you want to post messages not liked by a repressive government is idiotic.
Or the UK, where you get arrested for suggesting you might blow up an airport on Twitter.
No, the KKK were arrested for ACTING upon incitement toward violence.
The KKK are allowed to march and yell in public, openly, as is any group like that, so long as they obtain
a parade permit, WHICH THEY CAN, in the US.
But if you break the law, like, oh, I dunno, KILL PEOPLE, commit arson, violate labor laws, intimidate employers...
such as what got the Klansmen in question in the parent post put in prison...
in China, you'd be the government. In the US, you're arrested.
Really. Well I guess its not like in the U.S. where a sports athlete will be fined at least 20 grand for posting nothing out of the ordinary. AKA Terrel Owens, Randy Moss
The fact of the matter is - if you have money in a bank account, and some spare change, you are better off than the majority of China, and most of the rest of the world.
Its populace is in a frightening situation, where speaking out against the regime is often a criminal activity. Its economy feeds off itself and other countries, and is reflected strongly to foreign markets, but the smoke-and-mirrors reality draws many comparisons to Cold War Russia, specifically its unsustainable growth and complete disregard for things like environment and human safety. Its foreign policy is bullheaded and unrepentant - and they get away with it, because the rest of the world admonishes it with one hand and spoon-feeds it with the other.
Its one thing to post a joke bomb threat and have the cops show up. Possibly give you some misdemeanor.
Its another thing to post a joke and have the cops pick you up and put you in a labour camp.
Possibly because it didn't happen? Klan members were arrested and imprisoned for crimes they commited (murder among them), but they still exist today and hold public rallies and events without being imprisoned for speaking.
You seem to be confusing hate-speech with hate-crimes. Going up on a stage and saying that "group X is a bunch of subhuman degenerates" is certainly hateful, but you have the right to do it. Going on stage and saying "group X is a bunch of subhuman degenerates" while beating a member of group-X with a club is a hate crime, and will carry different penalties than just beating someone with a club would normally.
Some bring out the best in others, some the worst. Some bring out far more.
That's a difference in degree, not kind; not a fundamental difference, but surely much less unpleasant to undergo.
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
Because "Being an anti-government activist lands Chinese woman in labour camp" isn't nearly exciting enough.
Soon America will be like this, if we don't start electing politicians who remove, rather than add laws.
I get a little tired of the bitching about China's human rights problems not because they aren't problems, but because people seem to just like to bitch rather than suggest what might be done. See the US can't just make China play nice and respect human rights that movie about Team America: World Police was a comedy/satire, not a documentary, if the puppets didn't give that away. The US can't just police China.
Now, the US could of course do things like refuse to trade or embargo China. Ok, ignoring any consequences to the US itself, what makes you think that would work? What evidence is there that wold do any good? It has been tried time and time again and never seems to improve conditions in countries, only make them worse. That isn't to say it cannot be a useful tool for security related issues, but it doesn't seem to do anything good human rights related.
In fact a rather strong argument can be made that the only way China will get better at human rights is if their own citizens demand it. They will have to force the change internally. Like with most things in human nature, people have to want to change before you can help them change. You can then also argue the best thing that the US can do for that is to keep as much free and open trade as possible. With free trade comes free information. though the Central Committee might not like it, they can't just cut off the flow of information, it would hurt business.
Free trade with China is producing dramatic increases in the standard of living for many people, and has actually improved the human rights situation from what it was. It is far, FAR from good but it is a hell of a lot better than when the great leap "forward" happened.
There's a strong argument that the best thing we can do is just to trade freely and make all our information and culture available. If you've a different suggestion then let's hear it as well as the defense for it, but please less with the hand-wringing.
I am intrigued by your proposal and wish to subscribe to your newsletter...
I need a wheelchair van for my son. Help me get the word out. https://www.gofundme.com/wheelchair-van-for-jj
She was imprisoned because she is a human rights activist, the joke regarding the anti-Japan demonstrators was only a pretense. The PSC (the Politburo; the Standing Committee of the Communist Party) couldn't care less about a joke that makes fun of people they hate anyway.
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
Are you fucking serious? That bitch was slapped with contempt of court because she was both nasty enough to decide the defendant she'd sworn to judge impartially was guilty before the defence had even been made, and stupid enough to post that on facebook. That wasn't about expressing an opinion, it was about openly declaring her intention to put someone in jail unjustly. Being on a jury is incredibly serious business.
Every time you elect a lawyer to elective office you are guaranteed that you will get a flood of redundant, contradictory, unenforceable & expensive laws, thereby ensuring the perpetual employment of their colleagues who are paid handsomely to unravel, defend against & prosecute this utterly pointless bullshit!
I killed da wabbit -Elmer Fudd
How is this modified as a troll? This is the writing on the wall and it will be too late to be disappointed once it has come to pass.
I'm conservative, and I'm not scared of China's threat to our security. I'm also disgusted by their human rights track record. Not everyone falls neatly into one corner of the Nolan Chart.
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
It's sort of like how America's medieval-style prisons are called the "correctional system".
Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
That has what to do with the U.S. government now?
It's stupid?
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
Ms. Cheng is pretty hot.
Because here where we have "free speech" it's not a crime.
What a load of crap.
The end does not justify the means. That mindset just builds a degrading loop of power hunger that corrupts more and more.
He's a libertarian. You can't argue with them based on things like facts and evidence. They believe that governments are the cause of all evil, and that without governments keeping them in check corporations will be warm and fluffy.
See jcr? It works better when you use an ad hominem as well as a straw man.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
It's fortunate for ordinary Americans that the government does such a poor job enforcing these laws or we would all be living in a police state already. Of course, the real purpose of these laws is not to enforce, but rather to render any citizen, even the most honest and upright, vulnerable to felony prosecution at the whim of the state. Those who naively support such proscriptions would do well to remember the words of Cardinal Richelieu who famously said, "If one would give me six lines written by the hand of the most honest man, I would find something in them to have him hanged". This goes hand in glove with another of his assertions; namely that, "Secrecy is the first essential in affairs of state." Ironically, it seems to have become the first essential in the affairs of individuals as well these days.