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Headlines : Civil LibertiesDefiant Chinese Harassed, Jailed Before Olympics
[Posted By ShiftShapers]Tibetan protesters cry after they were arrested during a protest rally outside of the Chinese Embassy in Kathmandu, Nepal, 02 April 2008. (Photo: EPA/Narendra Shrestha)
Republished from TruthOut
Zhengding, China – Behind the gray walls and barbed wire of the prison here, eight Chinese farmers with a grievance against the government have been consigned to Olympic limbo.
Their indefinite detainment, relatives and neighbors said, is the price they are paying for stirring up trouble as China prepares to host the Beijing Games. Trouble, the Communist Party has made clear, will not be permitted.
“My bet is the authorities won’t let them out until after the Olympics,” said Wang Xiahua, a veteran anti-government agitator from this farm town 180 miles southwest of Beijing and a supporter of the imprisoned farmers.
The Olympic Games have become the occasion for a broad crackdown against dissidents, gadflies and malcontents this summer. Although human rights activists say they have no accurate estimate of how many people have been imprisoned, they believe the figure to be in the thousands.
The crackdown comes seven years after the secretary general of the Beijing Olympic Bid Committee declared that staging the Games in the Chinese capital would “not only promote our economy but also enhance all social conditions, including education, health and human rights….
Posted by ShiftShapers
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Posted by ShiftShapers on Wednesday, July 30th 2008
God bless China
Death to the PRC
I second that. Regimes that keep their people under macro-sociology paradigms are enemies of their own people. Where the PRC is concerned, you can’t get any more macro than that.
We have tolerated the PRC’s attitude for too long because of our sympathy for their demographic and economic challenges. It’s taken for weakness.
Will the China Olympics Be a PR Debacle? The U.S. is ready for the Olympic Games to be a major boon for capitalism, but political protest could end up being the real story.
Bush’s Olympic Plans: Go To China, Applaud, Politely Ignore Human Rights Abuses: Yes, if history has taught us anything, it’s that one should never use moments like these to shed light on the injustices of the world.
1,100 Tibetan Protesters Arrested in Nepal Ahead of Olympics: Agence France-Presse: Nepalese police said they had arrested at least 1,100 Tibetans protesting near Chinese embassy buildings on Friday, hours ahead of the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics.
We have tolerated the PRC’s attitude for too long because of our sympathy for their demographic and economic challenges. It’s taken for weakness.
Dude – YOUR country is at this very moment responsible for the deaths of at least 500,000 people over the last 5 years. Has it ever occurred to that you have absolutely no moral basis upon which to criticise the Chinese