H17070
Headlines : InternationalChina Slams Jail Door on Olympic Dissent
China has made it clear that it will not brook any embarrassing protests highlighting political or social problems during the Games. But human rights campaigners have vowed to seize the opportunity to protest while the world’s eyes are on China.
[Posted By ShiftShapers]Republished from The Toronto Star
BEIJING – In the darkest of ironies, as the Olympic torch was lit in Athens yesterday, a court in China sentenced a man to five years in prison after he dared to say the principle of human rights is more important than the Olympic Games. Unemployed former factory worker, Yang Chunlin, 54, gathered more than 10,000 signatures on a petition last year, appealing against illegal seizures of land from poor farmers by powerful local officials in the northeastern province of Heilongjiang.
The petition letter began: “We want human rights, not the Olympics.”
Yang was promptly arrested July 6 and charged with trying to subvert state power – a broad charge frequently used against those who openly criticize the government.
After Yang’s trial last month – which lasted less than a day – Sophie Richardson of Human Rights Watch said she feared that, “soon it will be official that objecting to the Olympics is a crime in China.”
In fact, prosecution of outspoken Chinese citizens has picked up pace in the final months before the Games.
Yang’s is the third case of a well-known dissident to come before the courts in recent weeks.
Last month, democracy activist and writer Lu Gengsong was sentenced to four years for…
Posted by ShiftShapers
Welcome to (A)utonomous Resistance, GNN’s exclusive one-stop infoshop for radical resources and information. This blog primarily serves as a vehicle with which to bring greater exposure to repressed and marginalized voices and ideas. Much of what I post here...
RELATED ITEMS
- China posts wanted list for Tibet
Posted by johnnycivil on Saturday, March 22nd 2008 - Boycott Beijing?
Posted by mikecimerian on Friday, March 21st 2008
VIOLENT TIBETAN A RUSE
Oh definitely a ruse . . . .
Tibet, the ‘great game’ and the CIA
Given the historical context of the unrest in Tibet, there is reason to believe Beijing was caught on the hop with the recent demonstrations for the simple reason that their planning took place outside of Tibet and that the direction of the protesters is similarly in the hands of anti-Chinese organizers safely out of reach in Nepal and northern India.
Similarly, the funding and overall control of the unrest has also been linked to Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, and by inference to the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) because of his close cooperation with US intelligence for over 50 year
Indeed, with the CIA’s deep involvement with the Free Tibet Movement and its funding of the suspiciously well-informed Radio Free Asia, it would seem somewhat unlikely that any revolt could have been planned or occurred without the prior knowledge, and even perhaps the agreement, of the National Clandestine Service (formerly known as the Directorate of Operations) at CIA headquarters in Langley.
Respected columnist and former senior Indian Intelligence officer, B Raman, commented on March 21 that “on the basis of available evidence, it was possible to assess with a reasonable measure of conviction” that the initial uprising in Lhasa on March 14 “had been pre-planned and well orchestrated”.
Could there be a factual basis to the suggestion that the main beneficiaries to the death and destruction sweeping Tibet are in Washington? History would suggest that this is a distinct possibility.
oh yeah, war with china is the whole point of hardening up and hyper-funding the death systems