Free Speech in China?......maybe

[Rob_Hugo@PortNW]

L.A. Times 7/24/08 byline Barbara Demick, dateline Beijing. (a map accompanies the article)

According to the article the Chinese authorities are going to "allow" free speech and demonstrations in three parks PROVIDED that the demonstrators have obtained"...permission from the Ministry of Public Security in advance, giving the names of the organizers, the topic and the number of participants."

Liu Shaowu, Olympics security director, said at a news conference, that "...Chinese law guarantees the legal rights of demonstration and assembly.." . It has never meant anything in the past...except for a brief period in 1978 when a Democracy Wall was allowed to exist while Deng Xiaoping was squabbling for power within the central committee. After the wall had served its purpose Deng had it closed and a number of participants arrested.... They had "free speech" then too and wanted a "Fifth Modernization" ...DEMOCRACY! It was too late when they realized that the man they championed had used the Democracy Wall as a means to consolidate his power. They found out the real meaning of his power in 1989 when the army crushed demonstrations for democracy all over China.

What will happen this time? Have the Beijing workers and students given up on the goals of freedom and democracy for China?

As Demick points out "Many writers and bloggers critical of the Olympics have been placed under house arrest or directed to leave Beijing for the duration of the Olympics."

Sharon Hom, executive director of Human Rights in China, adds, "...try demonstrating about Tibet, Taiwan, Tiananmen Square, and see what happens."

The Beijing authorities have already moved the traditional petitioners to the outskirts of the capital at World Park.

Still and all it remains to be seen if the Beijing workers and students still have the courage, hope and optimism of 1989. Let's see if the Mothers of Tiananmen are allowed to demonstrate, the Falun Gong, etc.

[Edit by="mwhittemore on Jul 24, 12:57:33 PM"][/Edit]

[Anonymous]

Well,
I must push the article, " China Presses Hush Money on Grieving Parents" from the New York Times and maybe this may help us define: Democracy...or not?

published July 24, 2008
By EDWARD WONG

[Anonymous]

Your thread really reminds me of a young woman i met in the summer of 2006 when I was in Beijing for 10 days. We were taking a walk on Tiannamen Square, with the statues of Mao and the Forbidden Palace around us. I then started a discussion with her about human rights abuses in China. I asked her how she felt about all of the people that Mao killed when he was in power. She replied that it was justified, and that even if he did some things wrong, for the most part, what he did overall was a good thing. I let that go, since Chinese history never really was my forte. But since the location called for it, I asked her, "So how do you feel about the Massacre that happened here? Where we are now?"

She replied basically with something like "It needed to happen, and not alot of people were killed anyway. The government needed to control what was happening". I was in complete shock! I told her, if the people wanted to protest, young college aged people, and suddenly the government massacres them...that's an injustice! She basically said that rules are the rules, and that if people are doing things wrong, what the government does is justified. To this day, I still think about that moment with her, because I got really really riled up inside.

Granted she doesnt represent all Chinese people, but it was interesting to see how her cultural upbringing had lead her to a completely different world outlook than mine.

Will human rights ever get completely "good" in china? I don't really know i guess. Perhaps it just all depends on your point of view.

[Anonymous]

So what happens now that they have lost a successor? This website reports:
http://www.asiaobserver.com/

"Hua Guofeng, who succeeded Mao Zedong as chairman of China's Communist Party, has died, state media is reporting. Xinhua news agency said 87-year-old Hua died in Beijing after suffering from an unspecified illness. Hua took over as chairman after Mao's death in 1976, and was in power at the end of the Cultural Revolution. But Hua was himself quickly pushed aside by radical reformer Deng Xiaoping."

Will they move forward or backwards?

[Author]

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