In February China launched a campaign against dissent that has resulted in the detention of those criticizing the Chinese government without giving the accused a trial.
Chinese blogger Fang Hong was detained on April 24 and sentenced to serve one year in a Chongqing re-education labor camp for using a blog to mock the chief of Chongqing’s Communist party, Bo Xilai, despite his removal of the blog post following the orders of web censors.
Hong’s blog arose from Chongqing’s prosecution of a lawyer, Mr. Li, who defended a man being prosecuted for perjury. Mr. Li was himself charged after his former client testified that he had encouraged him to make false torture allegations. However, many believe that Mr. Li was framed by the government for opposing the campaign of Bo Xilai. Mr. Li was convicted and sentenced to two and a half years in prison.
This year, the lovers of freedom have enjoyed the selection made by the Norwegian Nobel Committee. The image of the kind China they tried to paint during the Beijing Olympics is now far away. Today the real China is portrayed to the world for not releasing Liu and for preventively arrestng the relatives, friends and associates of the awarded dissident. The economic fate of China has changed thanks to free market forces. But that doesn’t mean at all that the Chinese leadership will allow a real political reform. At this time of global financial crisis, we can not forget that many governments have ignored their own volition and the deplorable human rights situation in the last Communist empire, thinking more than anything that China buys their debt and that that money can pay for their own domestic financial excesses. But in a fit of human decency, the Free World will celebrate Liu’s Award.
A Chinese proverb says: “One generation plants the trees, but another is enjoying the shade.” People like Liu Xiaobo are planting the trees. It may take more or less time, but future generations will definitely enjoy the shade.
Imagine what would happen if Spain declared Franco a “national hero”… And I don’t think he actually killed half a million Communists…
Indonesian Dictator Suharto
By the time his 31-year rule finally came to an end amid riots and demonstrations in 1998, Suharto had become one of the most reviled dictators of the late 20th century. He was charged with the murder of half a million suspected Communists in the 1960s after he put down a coup against his predecessor, Sukarno (a restoration of order that also led swiftly to the-then Major-General’s ascent to power). He stood accused of genocide in East Timor, more than one-quarter of whose population perished after his 1975 invasion and subsequent occupation of the former Portuguese colony. Free speech and democracy in Indonesia were crushed, with dissidents jailed or summarily shot. As if that were not ignominy enough, he also had the distinction of being branded the most corrupt world leader of all time by the NGO Transparency International, which estimated he looted up to $35bn from the state coffers.
On his death, it may have been said “he will never be forgotten“, but one would have thought most Indonesians would fervently wish the opposite. However, in a move that has caused consternation to human rights activists and heated debate in the country’s media, the Indonesian government is now proposing that the former dictator be formally declared a “national hero”.
Imprisoned Chinese democracy campaigner Liu Xiaobo on Friday won the Nobel Peace Prize — an award that drew furious condemnation from the authoritarian government and calls from world leaders including President Barack Obama for Liu’s quick release.
Chinese state media blacked out the news and Chinese government censors blocked Nobel Prize reports, which highlighted Liu’s calls for peaceful political change, from Internet websites. China declared the decision would harm its relations with Norway and promptly summoned Oslo’s ambassador to Beijing to make a formal protest.
…The Nobel committee praised Liu’s pacifist approach, ignoring threats by Chinese diplomats even before the announcement that such a decision would result in strained ties with Norway. Liu has been an ardent advocate of peaceful, gradual political change.
The Nobel committee cited Liu’s participation in the Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing in 1989 and the Charter 08 document he recently co-authored, which called for greater freedom in China and an end to the Communist Party’s political dominance.
Two related themes, however, thread their way through all the novels of Mr. Vargas Llosa, who won the Nobel literature prize Thursday. These themes are a fascination with the human craving for freedom (be it political, social or creative) and the liberation conferred by art and imagination. Indeed, storytelling itself remains a central concern in the author’s work, in both his taste for willfully complicated narratives and his philosophical preoccupation with the ways in which subjectivity acts as a distorting prism for our apprehension of the world.
Ernst Zander was a youngster when he was captured by the Soviets after the war. After doing some time at a prison at Jamlitz, he was sent on to Buchenwald. The Nazis had used the site as a concentration camp where an estimated 50,000 people, were executed or starved and worked to death.
After World War II, the Soviets used the same facility for one of their biggest internment camps. Zander ended up there, because the Russians accused him of being a "Wehrwolf" – the standard term back then for a German who tried to fight Russian tanks and machinery as the Red Army advanced toward Berlin in the final stages of the war. He denies these allegations, saying that he was imprisoned for no crime at all. He says the conditions he and other prisoners faced at the Buchenwald camp were harsh.
"Our family did not know that we were being held in the camp. We could not write to anyone. We were so alone. It was a very bad situation," Zander told Deutsche Welle.
The director of the Buchenwald memorial site foundation, Volkhard Knigge, hastens to add that all the war-time allies had their own internment camps in Germany, emphasizing that of course the Soviets too had the right to have such camps after all the cruelty they’d experienced at the hands of Nazi Germany. But he points out that the Soviet internment camps differed from those of the Western allies.
…The last three camps — Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen and Bautzen – were only closed as Soviet internment centers in 1950, several months after the founding of the communist German Democratic Republic. Some of the inmates were sent on to Soviet gulags such as the one at Workuta. Others were sentenced to long prison terms after show trials that went down in history as "the Waldheim trials" after a small town near Chemnitz in Saxony. Others were freed.
President Hugo Chávez called on the popular power authorities today to create militias to defend the Venezuelan Revolution in the 184 communes that are constituted at national level.
According to the Head of State, the residents in those areas, made up by hundred of families with low resources, will receive military training to resist any attack.
We won’t attack anybody, but we have to get ready to defend hand to hand, millimeter by millimeter, the territory of this Revolution, he pointed out during his Sunday program Aló, Presidente.
The FBI just wanted to know how Bin Laden would look today, if alive still. But they have awoken a very… tiresome dangerous man This is going to be truly hard to resist: he is not going to stop till the US is a part of that beacon of freedom that is called Cuba:
The United Left MP (communist) has called on a press conference to ask again for responsibilities after the polemic of Bin Laden’s photo made by FBI, which used Llamazares’ traits.
The communist politician has asked for high-level resignations and sackings and not of the “FBI’s last technician”. “I don’t believe that US has found my image in Google …”, he stated. In his opinion, his image’s use is based only in one of two reasons: prejudices or ideologic sectarianism".
In fact, Llamazares has asked US to investigate if his image was used because he is a “leftist politician”. So he had already sent complaint letters to US Ambassador in Spain, the FBI and US Congress.
No, they found you because you look like an Arab. But just stop thinking someone is pursuing you: from 21 seats in Spanish Congress that Communists had back in Anguita’s years, you have now the astonishing number of… 1 (the other Communists have, was won in Catalonia by Els Verts). Don’t worry: US (or anybody else) is really not interested in losers.
"I’m not interested in an excuse.
Transcription:
I’m not interested in unconvincing excuses made by an Embassy’s Civil Servant. Excuses must be from the same level accusations were made, by US Government and the FBI
Which accusations? No one has accused you of terrorism! You just have similarities with Arab people.
I’m not interested in excuses: I want a full investigation on this shameful case. (…) I want them to investigate clearly if leftists are inside FBI archives. US, European, Latin-American leftists or any other. What would have happened if it wouldn’t have been Gaspar Llamazares, if it wouldn’t have been a known politician?
Known?? Where?
Possibly, an unknown citizen when arriving at an airport, would have been frightened or soemthing wrong
Don’t make me laugh: not even Abdulmutallab wasn’t controlled and there were pertinent informations linking him to terrorism. Just because some of your globally recognisible features were used to consider how Bin Laden’s ones could be, no one is going to arrest you at an airport!
Lastly, I reserve myself any pertinent actions, in this case, legal actions, to defend my image, image which has been damaged but not repaired by the Embassy’s unconvincing excuses nor by ordering the fraudulently set photos to be partially withdrawn from their archives. Image which will only be repaired by a full investigation on this issue, with clear explanations and with responsibles being punished"
A 75-year-old Christian was shot and killed in Mosul, Iraq on January 11. Hikmat Sleiman had just returned home from closing his grocery shop when a group of assailants opened fire, killing him instantly. Local Christians see his murder and the string of other attacks against believers in recent months (click here for more information) as evidence of “ethnic cleansing” designed to force Christians from the area. (Source: AsiaNews)
Pakistan:
On December 26, two Pakistani Christians, Imran Masih (21) and Khushi Masih (24), were shot for refusing to convert to Islam while at a wedding in Chak 297-JB, Punjab province. Shortly after the believers arrived at the wedding, a group of armed Muslim youths surrounded them and began shooting into the air, as is a customary show of celebration at village weddings. However, one of the Muslims then threatened to shoot Imran and Khushi if they did not recite the Islamic profession of faith. The Christians refused and instead recited Psalm 91. The infuriated Muslims then shot the believers in the chest and left them for dead. At last report, the believers were receiving treatment at a hospital and doctors were hopeful that they would make a full recovery. Police have yet to arrest the suspects, who have claimed that the shootings were an accident. (Source: Compass Direct)
China:
On December 25, Chinese authorities disrupted a Christmas celebration in Korla City, Xinjiang province and arrested several elderly Christians. One of the believers, Wang Qiuyue (71), was seized roughly and thrown against a police car. Her furniture was then set on fire as she looked on. Authorities also broke into the home of He Cuiying (69), who is half-paralyzed and confined to her bed, and set fire to 30 Bibles and other religious literature.
On the afternoon of January 8, 30 leaders of the Chinese House Church Alliance were detained in Handan City, Hebei province after a group of officers from the Public Security and Religious Affairs Bureaus barged into their Bible study. The 30 men and women were then forcefully taken to an unknown interrogation centre within the city. At last report, the authorities were threatening some of the detained pastors with 15 days of administrative detention. (Source: ChinaAid)
Yemen:
Anthony S. Authorities in Yemen have reportedly started negotiations for the release of six Christian hostages — a family of five from Germany and a British engineer — who were kidnapped along with three other women in June (click here for more information). The bodies of the women, Rita Stumpp (26), Anita Gruenwald (24) and Eom Young-sun (33), were found shortly after the kidnapping. Until recently, however, the state of Johannes (37), his wife Sabine (37) and their children, Lydia (5), Anna (3) and Simon (1), as well as Anthony was unknown. The kidnappers have demanded a ransom of $2 million USD as well as immunity, free passage and a guarantee that they will not be handed over to neighbouring Saudi Arabia. (Sources: Middle East Concern, AFP)
Click on the links to know the particulars. Impressive: 7 out of 10 countries are Islamic. Other two are Communist. One is a mixture of both. Shockinly, China, where religion is forbidden if it’s not leadered by the State, is not on the top ten. So, we have to imagine the situation in these other 10 countries.
"Weather patterns were more like those in the late 1970s, experts said, while Met Office figures released on Monday are expected to show that the country is experiencing the coldest winter for up to 25 years."
"[The U.S. is] becoming more juvenile as a nation. The guys who won World War II and that whole generation have disappeared, and now we have a bunch of teenage twits,” the Academy Award winning actor and director told the magazine. "The world needs this kind of story nowadays. It's just … everybody's so screwed up. It seems like our country's in kind of a morbid mood, because of the recession or whatever."
Daniil Sysoyev, assasinated in his church by a masked man.
Oh, and he also critisized Stalin and Russian pagans, although he had received death threats only “as a result of his work among Russian Muslims“:
A Russian Orthodox priest known for his outspoken criticism of Islam and attempts to convert Muslims to Christianity has been assassinated in his Moscow church.A masked gunman shot Father Daniil Sysoyev in the head and chest after asking for him by name, police said. The choirmaster, Vladimir Strelbinsky, was seriously wounded in the attack at St Thomas Church in southern Moscow.
Father Daniil, 35, died of his wounds in hospital late last night. A Russian newspaper reported that he had recently told its journalists of 14 death threats by telephone and e-mail, which he had received as a result of his work among Muslim migrants from former Soviet republics.
…. However, Father Daniil also had enemies among Russian nationalist groups and admirers of Joseph Stalin, whom he criticised on his blog for ignoring the murders of innocent people. The priest also made enemies among radical Russian pagans for his efforts to persuade people to leave religious cults.
Such cases are astonishingly common in China, where the government estimates that between 30,000 and 60,000 children are abducted every year by child-smuggling rings. Many are sold onwards to mines and factories looking for cheap labour or families who, partly because of China’s one-child policy, are desperate for a male heir.Most of those who go missing are boys, who reportedly can fetch upwards of $5,000 on the black market, while girls are said to sometimes sell for as little as $500. While most of those kidnapped are trafficked within China, some are sold abroad to Southeast Asia and occasionally onwards to North America.
… Parents of the missing have received a charge of hope this year from a government campaign that has resulted in the rescue of 2,169 kidnapped children, some only a few months in age, others now as old as 25.
…But in southern Guangdong province, where China’s child-snatching problem is at its most rampant, Mr. Sun and other parents believe the local police are as much a part of the problem as the solution. Children in the factory towns of China’s Pearl River Delta are seen as easier prey because their parents often work long hours, and are too poor to afford child care, forcing them to leave their children to play outside by themselves.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has threatened to expropriate Toyota Motor Corp.’s local assembly plant if it doesn’t produce more vehicles designed for rural areas and increase technology transfer.Mr. Chavez said Wednesday that Toyota needs to transfer more new technologies and manufacturing methods from headquarters to its local unit in Venezuela, adding that other foreign auto-assembly plants are also not doing enough of this.
Mr. Chavez said his socialist government is going to apply strict quotas regarding the number and types of vehicles auto makers can produce. He ordered an immediate inspection of Toyota’s facilities to see how many “rustic vehicles” they are currently producing.
“They’ll have to fulfill [the quotas], and if not, they can get out,” Mr. Chavez said during a televised address. “We’ll bring in another company.”
China’s most prominent dissident, Liu Xiaobo, has been sentenced by a Beijing court to 11 years in prison for “incitement to subvert state power.” The verdict has been met with sharp criticism by rights groups and the international community.
Of course, China has a very important public opinion, so this “blasts” from international rights groups, Governments, etc., is going to influence greatly there.
Note: I was being sarcastic… Chinese leaders don’t care what others think or believe about them. This punishment is certainly abominable. But that’s not going to stop Communist leaders, as they consider that this man is really dangerous to the system. He may not have “legions” (as Stalin asked about the Pope) but he has words, ideas, proposals. In Communist China, as in every other dictatorship, the only men who are allowed to have ideas, are the leaders of the Communist Party and only if the fit inside Communist doctrine.
The South African Communist Party SACP gave its highest award, the Chris Hani Peace Prize, to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez this week in recognition of Chavez’s leadership in the worldwide struggle against imperialism and for socialism.
Chavez was chosen to receive the award because he is “a principal fighter in the anti-imperialist struggle, the Bolivarian Revolution, and for his commitment to the struggle for the peace, solidarity, and socialism of the working class,” said SACP General Secretary Blade Nzimande.
Despite Liu’s trial coming shortly before Christmas, it is sure to receive widespread international attention. Political leaders in Europe and Washington have expressed concern about the case.Liu has been among his country’s best known critics of restrictions on citizens’ rights, and was detained late last year while helping oversee the launch of the “Charter 08” petition for political change. [Note he was just asking for democracy]
Chinese authorities said last week they had decided to try Liu on charges of “inciting subversion of state power” for publishing essays critical of the ruling Communist Party and for his role in organizing the “Charter 08” petition.
Liu’s lawyer Shang Baojun said on Sunday that a Beijing court had notified him the dissident would be tried on Wednesday. Shang said he had been notified by telephone and was awaiting formal written notice of the precise time of the trial.
The president of the United Nations General Assembly, Rev. Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann, on Saturday declared Bolivian President Evo Morales as “World Hero of Mother Earth” in a ceremony at the presidential palace in this capital.
With a medal and a parchment scroll, the General Assembly of the United Nations Organization named Morales “the maximum exponent and paradigm of love for Mother Earth” in the resolution for his decoration that was read during the ceremony.
The document added that the decision was taken “after extensive consultation” among representatives of the General Assembly’s member countries.
D’Escoto recalled that Morales “was the one who most helped” the United Nations declare last April 22 as International Mother Earth Day, or “Pachamama” as Mother Earth is said in Bolivia’s Aymara Indian tongue.
…Besides Morales, the former Cuban head of state Fidel Castro has been named “World Hero of Solidarity” and the late ex-president of Tanzania, Julius Nyerere, will be honored as “World Hero of Social Justice.”
North Korea denounced upcoming joint South Korean and U.S. military drills and said it would “wipe out” the countries with nuclear weapons if they threatened the communist state, its KCNA news agency said on Sunday.
Of course, hmm, has any person from Obama’s Administration spoken about this? Was that another price to pay for the release of Al-Gore’s media journalists? Yes, it was Bush the one who changed policy in that… But wasn’t Obama the one who had come to save the world from all Bush’s failures? Oh, wait…: only if it’s about the “Muslim world” (even if they are Hizbullah or Terrorist apologists).
“Thousands of Brazilians who live on Bolivian territory are suffering the threat of banishment, because Evo Morales, under the claim of guaranteeing his country sovereignty, wants to settle 4 thousand peasant families from La Paz and Cochabamba, onto 200 thousand hectares located in the bordering region.
The first victims are poor Brazilian settlers’ families , who have been expelled from the Pando department. Around 40 families have already arrived in the town of Plácido Castro, 97 kilometers away from Rio Branco, Acre’s capital. Here, the state of Acre (the Brazilian side) and the department of Pando (the Bolivian side) are divided by the Abunã River.”
Imagine if Uribe would have done this… 😦
“Legal documents, seen by The Daily Telegraph, have accused the EU of indirectly funding Palestinian terrorism because of a failure to “prevent the misuse of European funds by non-profit organisations which use these funds to finance terrorism”.
Mr Katorza has demanded EU “reparations for lost job income, reparations for physical and psychological damages, reparations for property damages, monies for reinforced buildings against missiles or any other military projectiles”.”
“Leaders of China’s elite state industries are renowned for their power, influence, and — in several recent cases — corruption. Increasingly, they are paying the price.
On Friday, the former head of the company that runs airports in Beijing and more than 30 other Chinese cities was put to death after the People’s Supreme Court upheld his sentence in a $16 million bribery and embezzlement case.”
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