Here's a reminder of the stakes in China and the importance of the uncensored internet to freedom for everyone.
At this moment perhaps, a Google employee is updating the censorship list, doing the work of Beijing's regime, and an important web page becomes forever invisible to a billion people in China.
Here's the site:
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,423551,00.html
The dictators of course fear if news of their violent attacks on their own citizens become broadly known across China; that citizens will object and revolt. Censorship only empowers dictators to operate in relative secrecy, free of fear of revolt.
Excerpts:
"China's Communist Party officials are employing brutal methods in dealing with difficult citizens. The most recent victim of what appears to be government-sanctioned brutality was a farmer who suffered a broken cervical vertebra when he was attacked by thugs."
"Two years ahead of the Beijing Olympics, the face China presents to the world is that of a country that gives its citizens free rein to enrich themselves while dealing mercilessly with its critics. "Torture is part of everyday practice in police stations," says American law professor and attorney Jerome Cohen, who represents civil rights activists in China. Thirty-two journalists are currently in prison, and attorneys who are too forceful in defending their clients' rights are often jailed or become victims of beatings themselves."
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I briefly reported on Fu Xiancai before:
http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2006-06-13-n56.html |
