World Condemns Bush for Decline of Human Rights in U.S.

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Chinese activist 'beaten in jail'

A leading Chinese human rights activist has been severely beaten in jail by other prisoners on the orders of his guards, Amnesty International has said.
Chen Guangcheng was reportedly beaten after he insisted on his right to appeal against his sentence and refused to allow his head to be shaved.

The human rights group said it feared for his life and that he was at risk of further torture and ill-treatment.

Mr Chen was jailed in 2006 for damaging property and disrupting traffic.

But his lawyers said the real reason was Mr Chen's exposure of violations of China's one-child policy, including forced sterilisations and abortions.

Hunger strike

In a statement, Amnesty said Mr Chen had told his wife that after he refused to have his head shaved, "six other prisoners had pushed him to the floor, encouraged by prison guards, and hit and kicked him hard".

Medical treatment was also withheld from him, the group said.

He said he was being punished for 'being disobedient' due to his insistence on filing an appeal to the provincial higher court

Amnesty International

"He has since begun a hunger strike in protest, refusing water as well as food," it added.

"He said he was being punished for 'being disobedient' due to his insistence on filing an appeal to the provincial higher court."

Amnesty said Mr Chen, who is blind, required either the assistance of his lawyer or his wife to help him draft an appeal, but that the prison authorities had refused to let them visit him for longer than 30 minutes per month.

He lost an earlier appeal against his four-year sentence in January.

The London-based group said Mr Chen was a "prisoner of conscience, jailed solely for his peaceful defence of human rights".

"The Chinese authorities must stop the persecution of people who stand up for human rights; as the Olympic Games draw closer, the world will be watching to see whether human rights promises have been honoured. At present they have not," it said.

Mr Chen, 35, has campaigned against what he says are abuses of the Chinese government's one-child policy.

Before being imprisoned, he accused local health workers in Linyi city, in Shandong province, of illegally forcing hundreds of people to have late-term abortions or sterilisations.

China brought in its one-child policy 27 years ago, in a drive to curb population growth, but forced sterilisation and abortion are prohibited.

BBC News

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You gotta point here, Bubba?

Want some cheese to go with your whine?

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Surely you get the point. Most human rights abuses that occur here, while not acceptable, are infinitessimal compared to what goes on in much of the rest of the world, China being a prime example.

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Brandon9000 wrote:

Surely you get the point. Most human rights abuses that occur here, while not acceptable, are infinitessimal compared to what goes on in much of the rest of the world, China being a prime example.

You are right. And this is why we have moral superiority and a mandate for certain of our decisions, whereas China does not. You want us to become like them? No? Then I guess people better keep complaining about things here to keep that from happening.

Cycloptichorn

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Brandon, should we do an examination of the American prison system here? I dont mean Bushie's international torture gulag's. Have you looked into the Texas Youth Commission sex scandal at all? You can start here if you're interested but keep in mind that Texas is just one state and this is a national problem. links

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I totally agree that such like presented here by Amnesty (via BBC via Brandon) is not acceptable at all aand should be

More than two years ago, a Channel 4 documentaryshowed that human right abuses like those documented in Abu Ghraib were commonplace in the USA's overcrowded and understaffed prisons, btw. (Report)

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This is, as i suspected was Brandon's purpose, a case of the "Oh Yeah? Well look how bad the other guy is!" type of argument. So, my neighbor beats his children and his wife, every night, with an electric cord (so there won't be marks to implicate him), and does not allow them to eat supper. Does that make acceptable that i should just slap The Girl around casually? Does that excuse abusive behavior on my part? Hardly--just because some clown on the other side of the county has killed his entire family with a shotgun doesn't mean that you can expect to get away with an unintentional act of vehicular homicide.

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Oh . . . if forgot to add: What a stupid f*ckin' thread.

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Setanta wrote:

This is, as i suspected was Brandon's purpose, a case of the "Oh Yeah? Well look how bad the other guy is!" type of argument. So, my neighbor beats his children and his wife, every night, with an electric cord (so there won't be marks to implicate him), and does not allow them to eat supper. Does that make acceptable that i should just slap The Girl around casually? Does that excuse abusive behavior on my part? Hardly--just because some clown on the other side of the county has killed his entire family with a shotgun doesn't mean that you can expect to get away with an unintentional act of vehicular homicide.

You can win all the arguments if you misrepresent the other person's position. I've never said the comparison justifies anything, and I don't think that it does. However, what I am saying is not complicated, and I don't see why you persistently misrepresent it. What I have said is that there ought to be some perspective. I don't like to see statements by the left and by people in other countries that seem to imply that the US is among the worst violaters. I don't like to see most of the condemnation directed at us. Human rights abuses in the US shouldn't be accepted, acquiesced to, or allowed, but they are truly infinitessimal compared to those in many, many other countries such as China and Russia.

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Brandon9000 wrote:

Setanta wrote:
This is, as i suspected was Brandon's purpose, a case of the "Oh Yeah? Well look how bad the other guy is!" type of argument. So, my neighbor beats his children and his wife, every night, with an electric cord (so there won't be marks to implicate him), and does not allow them to eat supper. Does that make acceptable that i should just slap The Girl around casually? Does that excuse abusive behavior on my part? Hardly--just because some clown on the other side of the county has killed his entire family with a shotgun doesn't mean that you can expect to get away with an unintentional act of vehicular homicide.

You can win all the arguments if you misrepresent the other person's position. I've never said the comparison justifies anything, and I don't think that it does. However, what I am saying is not complicated, and I don't see why you persistently misrepresent it. What I have said is that there ought to be some perspective. I don't like to see statements by the left and by people in other countries that seem to imply that the US is among the worst violaters. I don't like to see most of the condemnation directed at us. Human rights abuses in the US shouldn't be accepted, acquiesced to, or allowed, but they are truly infinitessimal compared to those in many, many other countries such as China and Russia.

Why didn't you respond to my post?

As an American taxpayer, there are things my voice and my vote can change and things they can't. I have zero ability to affect change upon China. I have a much larger ability to affect change here at home. Which choice is a waste of my time, and which one is productive?

Cycloptichorn

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The link you posted is from the BBC, btw.

Any idea which US media reported about this and when?
(It'sa theme since quite some time in Europe.)

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

Brandon9000 wrote:
Setanta wrote:
This is, as i suspected was Brandon's purpose, a case of the "Oh Yeah? Well look how bad the other guy is!" type of argument. So, my neighbor beats his children and his wife, every night, with an electric cord (so there won't be marks to implicate him), and does not allow them to eat supper. Does that make acceptable that i should just slap The Girl around casually? Does that excuse abusive behavior on my part? Hardly--just because some clown on the other side of the county has killed his entire family with a shotgun doesn't mean that you can expect to get away with an unintentional act of vehicular homicide.

You can win all the arguments if you misrepresent the other person's position. I've never said the comparison justifies anything, and I don't think that it does. However, what I am saying is not complicated, and I don't see why you persistently misrepresent it. What I have said is that there ought to be some perspective. I don't like to see statements by the left and by people in other countries that seem to imply that the US is among the worst violaters. I don't like to see most of the condemnation directed at us. Human rights abuses in the US shouldn't be accepted, acquiesced to, or allowed, but they are truly infinitessimal compared to those in many, many other countries such as China and Russia.

Why didn't you respond to my post?

As an American taxpayer, there are things my voice and my vote can change and things they can't. I have zero ability to affect change upon China. I have a much larger ability to affect change here at home. Which choice is a waste of my time, and which one is productive?

Cycloptichorn

Sorry. I didn't respond to your post because I agreed with it.

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I believe the dilemma is what is also known as Moynihan's Law:

[i]The amount of violations of human rights in a country is always an inverse function of the amount of complaints about human rights violations heard from there. The greater the number of complaints being aired, the better protected are human rights in that country.[/i]

It's really just kinda stating the obvious. There will be less complaints about the torture of 10,000 people in a totalitarian regime than about the torture of one single person in democracy that cherishes freedom of speech.

So, is the number of complaints directly proportional to the number of violations? No. Does that mean that because there are more complaints about injustice in a democratic country than about injustice in a tyranny, that those who do the reporting are biased towards the tyranny? No. Does it mean that because violations happen elsewhere, too, that we should stop exerting our influence to stop the violations in our vicinity? Obviously not.

Therefore, I really wonder what were trying to achieve with this thread, Brandon... Did you want to make a point in stating the obvious? Because that's the only, semi-legitimate reason I could come up with as a justification for this thread (and the other one, where you used a similarly disingenuous title).

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old europe wrote:

I believe the dilemma is what is also known as Moynihan's Law:

[i]The amount of violations of human rights in a country is always an inverse function of the amount of complaints about human rights violations heard from there. The greater the number of complaints being aired, the better protected are human rights in that country.[/i]

It's really just kinda stating the obvious. There will be less complaints about the torture of 10,000 people in a totalitarian regime than about the torture of one single person in democracy that cherishes freedom of speech.

So, is the number of complaints directly proportional to the number of violations? No. Does that mean that because there are more complaints about injustice in a democratic country than about injustice in a tyranny, that those who do the reporting are biased towards the tyranny? No. Does it mean that because violations happen elsewhere, too, that we should stop exerting our influence to stop the violations in our vicinity? Obviously not.

Therefore, I really wonder what were trying to achieve with this thread, Brandon... Did you want to make a point in stating the obvious? Because that's the only, semi-legitimate reason I could come up with as a justification for this thread (and the other one, where you used a similarly disingenuous title).

First of all, I don't need a justification for the thread, and secondly I've already stated my motive, which you've covered well in your post.

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Brandon9000 wrote:

First of all, I don't need a justification for the thread, and secondly I've already stated my motive, which you've covered well in your post.

No, you certainly don't need a justification. I also think that it's an interesting topic to discuss.

I was just wondering about the reason for this kind of "false flag attack," particularly as you've done it before. I mean, you could as have titled the thread "Moynihan's Law" or something. As it is, it's got the air of justification for what we are doing about it.

But I guess that kind of provocation was really your point, and you've got a discussion going. So it's probably a good thing. (Even though I have to say that I'm usually drawn to a thread at least as much by the name of the author or the people posting there as by the mere title.)

It's also a good opportunity to point out that people who are discussing American politics on an American internet forum with lots of Americans posting about mainly American politics are not inherently biased against America. That, too, should be kind of obvious, but people are still complaining about it, every now and then.

Not that that's what you stated as a purpose for starting this thread, so it's not really directed at you.

However, what you've said was that you don't like to see most of the condemnation directed at you (as in "the United States"). I don't think that can be helped. America is one of the largest democratic countries. As a direct function of that, a whole lot of criticism will be lobbed at the US whenever America does something wrong.

But still, that doesn't change some basic facts regarding just the criticism of America (without viewing it in relation to the criticism directed at other countries):

- virtually all of the criticism directed at the United States is a result of some wrongdoing by the US
- the more blunders occur, the more criticism you'll get to hear

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old europe wrote:

Brandon9000 wrote:
First of all, I don't need a justification for the thread, and secondly I've already stated my motive, which you've covered well in your post.

No, you certainly don't need a justification. I also think that it's an interesting topic to discuss.

I was just wondering about the reason for this kind of "false flag attack," particularly as you've done it before. I mean, you could as have titled the thread "Moynihan's Law" or something. As it is, it's got the air of justification for what we are doing about it.

But I guess that kind of provocation was really your point, and you've got a discussion going. So it's probably a good thing. (Even though I have to say that I'm usually drawn to a thread at least as much by the name of the author or the people posting there as by the mere title.)

It's also a good opportunity to point out that people who are discussing American politics on an American internet forum with lots of Americans posting about mainly American politics are not inherently biased against America. That, too, should be kind of obvious, but people are still complaining about it, every now and then.

Not that that's what you stated as a purpose for starting this thread, so it's not really directed at you.

However, what you've said was that you don't like to see most of the condemnation directed at you (as in "the United States"). I don't think that can be helped. America is one of the largest democratic countries. As a direct function of that, a whole lot of criticism will be lobbed at the US whenever America does something wrong.

But still, that doesn't change some basic facts regarding just the criticism of America (without viewing it in relation to the criticism directed at other countries):

- virtually all of the criticism directed at the United States is a result of some wrongdoing by the US
- the more blunders occur, the more criticism you'll get to hear

Well, your posts make me feel a bit better, although I'd say that much of the criticism is factually incorrect, and some of it is along the lines of conspiracy theories. I'm sure some of it is valid.

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Arrest of Christian bookseller focuses attention on China

By Calum MacLeod, USA TODAY

BEIJING ?- The owner of a Christian bookstore here, held in secret detention since Nov. 28, broke no laws and sold only legally sanctioned religious material, his wife says.
Businessman Shi Weihan was arrested because of his faith and refusal to register their unapproved "house church" with authorities, says Zhang Jing, 37.

Shi's case has attracted international attention and drawn condemnation from overseas Christian groups. His arrest comes as the Chinese government is struggling to convince critics that it has expanded religious freedom and tolerance.

China is officially atheist and restricts religious practice to state-sanctioned churches and places of worship regulated by authorities. The government, military and ruling Communist Party discourage officeholders and members from practicing any faith.

In September, though, the party made a historic concession to the fast-growing church movement by saying that "religious believers should be mobilized to make a positive contribution to society."

FIND MORE STORIES IN: Beijing | Christian | Chinese government | Holy Spirit | CAI
Last Saturday, the government announced that the country's only authorized Christian publisher had reached a milestone, printing its 50 millionth bible. At a ceremony marking the occasion, Ye Xiaowen, the top religious affairs official, said China "respects and protects religious freedom," according to reports in state-run media.

Each year, Chinese police arrest thousands of Christians, Muslims, Buddhists and others affiliated with unsanctioned religious groups. Last month, government officials were forced to deny reports that bibles would be banned from the Olympic Village at the 2008 Summer Games in Beijing.

The U.S. State Department calls China a "country of particular concern" for violations of religious freedom against Protestants, Catholics, Tibetan Buddhists, Uighur Muslims and followers of Falun Gong, a spiritual group banned as an "evil cult" in 1999.

Shi's case has put China's record in the spotlight again, just months before the Summer Olympics. The case also is being watched by the U.S. Embassy in Beijing because Shi and Zhang have a 7-year-old daughter who was born in the USA and is a U.S. citizen.

Shi opened the Holy Spirit Bookstore in a north Beijing office tower in March 2006. The businessman, who also runs a travel agency, converted to Christianity more than a decade ago and began an informal "house church" called the Antioch Eternal Life Church.

Each Sunday, 20 to 30 worshipers meet in a room next to the store, Zhang says.

"The government only wants people to worship in registered churches, but we prefer the freedom and comfort of our own place. If we register, the government would supervise us and demand reports on speakers and all attendees," she says.

Police confiscated more than 1,000 books and other religious literature even though "everything we sell is copyrighted and has a legal bar code" to indicate that it is state-approved, Zhang says.

California businessman Ray Sharpe, a friend of Shi's and a onetime China resident, calls the arrest "shocking but not unusual."

Cai Zhuohua, a Christian pastor who served three years in prison for printing and distributing bibles, says membership in China's illegal churches dwarfs that of legally approved churches.

"The government is afraid of the fast growth of house churches," Cai says. "So many house churches had my bibles that the authorities said I was a threat to national security and kept asking if there was a foreign organization behind me."

Zhang says she remains fearful that she will be arrested. She says police have refused to allow her to visit Shi or deliver him medicine he needs to control diabetes and high blood pressure.

Cai says Shi "will suffer" at the Haidian detention center northwest of Beijing, where Cai spent a year and was held in a cell with 27 other prisoners. "The cells are very cold and crowded," he says. "I was not allowed to read the bible, even though my relatives tried to send copies inside. Con men and thieves were allowed to leave prison early, but because of my religion I had to serve my full term."

This week, shoppers continued to visit Shi's bookstore, rummaging through picture frames, crosses and other goods left behind after the police raid.

One customer, Hannah Zhang, browsed for gifts for Christmas, a holiday that she said is arousing curiosity among the Chinese.

"People are looking for more meaning in their lives," she said. "They see Christmas decorations everywhere and don't know what it means, (wondering), 'Is it Santa Claus's birthday?' Now, more are interested and want to find out about Christmas."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-12-13-china-bible_N.htm

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Brandon9000 wrote:

I've never said the comparison justifies anything, and I don't think that it does. However, what I am saying is not complicated, and I don't see why you persistently misrepresent it. What I have said is that there ought to be some perspective. I don't like to see statements by the left and by people in other countries that seem to imply that the US is among the worst violaters. I don't like to see most of the condemnation directed at us. Human rights abuses in the US shouldn't be accepted, acquiesced to, or allowed, but they are truly infinitessimal compared to those in many, many other countries such as China and Russia.

But you ARE saying the comparison is just. You are saying the outrage against the US should be muted because there are other outrages out there. The rest of the world is saying that China makes no bones about its policies. We've been fighting them for a long time and we have a long time to go. But the US was thought to have evolved to a place where we don't torture people. Maybe there is a hope that there is something to appeal to here, that is they yell loud enough, people of good will will hear and respond. To fall back on an earlier analogy, when you find out the local minister is knocking his wife around, there is going to be a lot of outrage. It doesn't matter that other men do worse to their families. Ministers are held to a higher standard.

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On September 20, 2001, before a joint session of Congress, President George W. Bush declared, "Our war on terror begins with Al Qaeda, but it does not end there.... Every nation, in every region, now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." As it turned out, those fateful words ushered in not a concerted worldwide campaign against militant fundamentalism but a wave of repression felt around the globe. Instead of being a standard-bearer for human rights and civil liberties, the United States lowered the bar, creating secret prisons or "black sites," erecting Guantánamo, rationalizing torture and curtailing civil liberties at home. The US-fashioned "global war on terror" (GWOT) was then replicated in country after country, adapting to local circumstances to provide rhetorical refuge for tyrants and forsaking democratic principles. As the articles that follow show, the "war on terror" has been invoked to arrest and torture prodemocracy activists in Egypt, round up street vendors and protesters in El Salvador, rationalize politically motivated assassinations in the Philippines, jail bloggers and censor websites in Thailand and condone military dictatorship in Pakistan. The criminalization of dissent is not new to these places, and it does not always reflect US intervention or security interests. But the "war on terror" is a new paradigm, and it has proven remarkably versatile and severely damaging. While purporting to protect democracy against its enemies, the "war on terror" has become one of them.

http://www.thenation.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20071231&s=forum_intro

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Every political system, no matter how repressive or democratic, is able to amp up public outrage over real or imagined violations of human rights. News media can easily fixate on stories of faraway injustice and cruelty. But the lofty stances end up as posturing to the extent that a single standard is not applied.

When U.S.-allied governments torture political prisoners, the likelihood of U.S. media scrutiny is much lower than the probability of media righteousness against governments reviled by official Washington.

But what are "human rights" anyway? In the USA, we mostly think of them as freedom to speak, assemble, worship and express opinions. Of course those are crucial rights. Yet they hardly span the broad scope that's spelled out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

That document ?- adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on Dec. 10, 1948 ?- affirms "human rights" in the ways that U.S. media outlets commonly illuminate the meaning of the term. But the Declaration of Human Rights also defines the rights of all human beings to include "freedom from fear and want" ?- and not only as generalities.

For instance, the first clause of Article 23 states: "Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favorable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment."

And: "Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work"; the right "to form and to join trade unions"; and, overall, "an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection."

Perhaps the farthest afield from the customary U.S. media parameters is Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which insists: "Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control."

Measured with such yardsticks for human rights, the United States falls far short of many countries. If American news media did a better job of reporting on human rights in all their dimensions, we'd be less self-satisfied as a nation ?- and more outraged about the widespread violations of human rights that persist in our midst every day.

The human consequences of those violations are incalculable, but they're largely removed from the center stage of dramas that fill news pages and newscasts. This downplaying of economic human rights is not mere happenstance. The violations are systemic ?- within a system that thrives on extreme inequities, creating enormous profits for corporations and enriching some individuals along the way.

Within the boundaries of dominant news media and mainline political discourse, the "issue" of human rights is in a narrow box. It severely limits the humanity of our social order.
http://www.mediachannel.org/wordpress/2007/12/13/the-usas-human-rights-daze/

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World Condemns Bush for Decline of Human Rights in U.S.

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