Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self. - Cyril Connolly
Thursday, August 21, 2008
See No Evil - Update
No surprise here. Beijing allotted three areas for "preapproved protests" during the Olympic Games. So it's utterly no surprise, that 10 Days into the Games not a single one of the 77 applications for protest by 149 individuals has been approved.
In fact, some of the applicants have been detained and jailed by the Public Security Bureau.
Xinhua, the official Chinese news agency reports otherwise. They claim that of the 77 applications:
All but three applications, were withdrawn after the authorities satisfactorily addressed the petitioners’ concerns, Xinhua said. Two of the remaining requests were rejected because the applicants failed to provide adequate information, and the last was rejected after the authorities determined it violated laws on demonstrations.
A representative from Human Rights Watch stated the obvious when they commented that the IOC seems totally oblivious to the fact that they are holding the Games in a repressive regime.
As for seeing any protesters during the Games - don't hold your breath.
UPDATE:
This news out of Beijing yesterday: Too Old and Frail to Re-educate? Not in China
Wang Xiuying, left, and Wu Dianyuan have been ordered to undergo “re-education” for seeking a protest permit in Beijing.
The two women, both in their late 70s, have never spoken out against China’s authoritarian government. Both walk with the help of a cane, and Ms. Wang is blind in one eye. Their grievance, receiving insufficient compensation when their homes were seized for redevelopment, is perhaps the most common complaint among Chinese displaced during the country’s long streak of fast economic growth.
But the Beijing police still sentenced the two women to an extrajudicial term of “re-education through labor” this week for applying to hold a legal protest in a designated area in Beijing, where officials promised that Chinese could hold demonstrations during the Olympic Games.
Dear China, You should be ashamed of yourselves for treating your grandmothers this way. They are hardly terrorists. Don't you have bigger issues to deal with? Like, say, pollution? Ethnic repression? Underage Olympians? Oh, and what about corruption?
The IOC has cared more about advertising dollars and scratch-my-back construction contracts on superfluous stadiums in the past 50 years than anything else, including repressive regimes.
The IOC is never-ending party for rich people to swoop into a new town every two years, suck up a bunch of money, and then start planning the next party.
The IOC has cared more about advertising dollars and scratch-my-back construction contracts on superfluous stadiums in the past 50 years than anything else, including repressive regimes.
The IOC is never-ending party for rich people to swoop into a new town every two years, suck up a bunch of money, and then start planning the next party.