China’s Choice: A New Human Rights Record
As much as I would like to talk about the burgeoning federal deficit, the endless series of funny McCain viral videos, universal healthcare; today is about the suppression of human rights in China. How many of us know about the Universal Declaration of Human Rights? I spoke to some of my colleagues at work yesterday and asked this very question; not one person could name one article from the declaration.
No country is perfect as a Chinese friend of mine texted me the other day when he read a recent article I wrote concerning China on this blog. That being said, when I think about the human rights abuses that have occurred and are occurring in America, I realize there is no excuse and I do not support places like Guantanamo Bay which violate article 9 of the UDHR:
No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.
The violations of the UDHR undertaken by the American Government are serious but the difference between the USA and the PRC are that in America and the West we can actually protest these things. When Woeser tried to leave China to receive awards for her poetry, the Chinese government has denied her a passport because as I wrote in a previous post: her coverage of the Tibetan riots perturbed the Chinese Government and they want to make sure that there is one less critic of Chinese policies outside of China.
People cannot protest in China for the fear of threatening “stability” or “harmony.” Any such protests can sometimes lead to lengthy prison sentences as well as possible re-education. What can we do? We can hope that the media will attempt to make a difference when they are covering the games however this is highly doubtful given that Beijing has already broken the promise of complete media freedom:
Reports have just confirmed that foreign journalists working from the Olympics press center in Beijing are unable to access amnesty.org, the Amnesty International website. In addition, The China Debate, a site recently launched by Amnesty International as a forum to discuss human rights has been blocked in China.
A number of other websites are also reported to have been blocked, including Taiwan newspaper Liberty Times and the Chinese versions of both Germany’s Deutsche Welle and the BBC.
The media can be ruled out, so as citizens of the world, we have to pressure our respective governments to push China to use the Olympics to showcase its support for human rights. I must give credit where it is due, President Bush has done exactly that in recent months and I hope he will keep up the pressure throughout the Olympic Games so that we can see some sort of positive impact generated rather then support of the status quo. Today Politics Across The Pond stands with those people in China who want freedom:
This will be the only post available today, I will restore the usual settings of this blog tomorrow. Thank you for supporting this day and please stop by the Dragon Lady’s Den where can you can see censorship at work (could not get the code to work for this site).
July 30 2008 10:50 am | Chinese Politics and World Politics
July 30th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
Thank you for the link, Crian. Regarding the code, it worked on my site this morning but I had to remove it as it drastically slowed down the loading of my blog, so I’ll leave a link to that post here and hope you don’t mind. There’s an update on it with a new video: http://myrepublicanblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/in-protest-of-beijing-olympic-games.html“>In Protest of The Beijing Olympic Games.
On a different subject (sorry) my latest post has to do with Massachusetts’ state health care system. It’s not a post - like this one - that we are going to be in agreement with, but it is the reason I’m against either government or state run programs. To be fair, I have also said that an article I linked to shows both the pros and the cons of the program. There are some benefits, certainly, but personally I believe the cons far outweigh the pros. Sorry to go so far off topic. Please forgive.
July 30th, 2008 at 6:12 pm
Looks as though I messed up the link. I’ll try again:
In Protest of the Beijing Olympic Games
July 30th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Crian,
“I realize there is no excuse and I do not support places like Guantanamo Bay which violate article 9 of the UDHR:”
how does that violate that section of the resolution?
July 30th, 2008 at 10:11 pm
Hey Gayle, I did notice the extra load times but as long as you were able to change one person’s mind about the dangers of censorship, you have truly accomplished something great.
Don’t worry about getting off topic Gayle, you have always been very polite with me so feel free to post anything you like whenever you wish in these comments.
There are some disadvantages to universal healthcare, I won’t argue that is a perfect system. Griper has pointed out the unfairness of such a proposed system. I will probably stop by tomorrow morning on your site to argue just a little bit more
Gitmo violates Article 9 Griper, because 100’s of people remained detained there without being charged which constitutes “arbitrary detention”, check out the main amnesty page for more information:
http://www.amnesty.org/en/counter-terror-with-justice
July 30th, 2008 at 11:50 pm
since when is prisoners taken in war charged with a crime?
August 1st, 2008 at 10:01 pm
Hey Griper, some of those prisoners were not taken in war and came to Gitmo through rendition flights hence they should have been charged with something before being detained there indefinitely.
August 6th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
ohh, i take it then that war was not declared and battle had not begun yet at the time of these rendition flights huh?
August 6th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
Some of the people in gitmo were not soldiers and fought in no wars. They were not enemy combatants.
The war on terror was a blanket statement created to give the U.S free reign to violate the human rights of certain people. There is no specific enemy, just terrorism in general.
President Bush is going to give a speech tomorrow about human rights, my point in all of this is that the pot should not be calling the kettle black ( I think that is the phrase)
August 6th, 2008 at 11:33 pm
show me a war where civilians were not imprisoned and you have a case. also, by demanding that charges be placed against them you have created a situation where people will be found guilty of the charges and be imprisoned with a criminal record instead of just sent home after the war. a good case in point is the first trial which found bin laden’s driver guilty. he may end up spending the rest of his life in prison now. where he probably would have been just released and sent home to his family after the war. so, keep that in mind.
August 8th, 2008 at 11:29 am
Bin Laden’s driver deserved what he got if anything he got of easily. On a war where civilian’s were not imprisoned, that is something I am not sure about but you are probably right that there has been no such war.
August 8th, 2008 at 12:18 pm
bin laden’s driver was only an underling. if he had been imprisoned without charges like a pow he probably would have been let go at the end of the war and sent home to his family. if we look back we only tried those higher ups for war crimes. now that driver may end up spending the rest of his life in prison.
case in example; hitler’s driver. he was never charged with a crime and he had as much to be guilty for as bin laden’s driver. in fact the defense brought this up at the trial.
August 9th, 2008 at 3:52 pm
I never realized Hitlers driver was not charged, I see what you mean though, I think we will end this thread here and I will go back to rethinking my argumentative technique or lack thereof.