A Stitch in Haste

And you thought Kelo was bad:

According to the Geneva-based Centre on Housing Rights and Evictions, 300,000 people have to date been evicted from their homes in Beijing in preparation for the Games. Many of them have been evicted without due process and without adequate compensation. Individuals have been arrested and imprisoned simply for peacefully objecting to the evictions from their homes. Some of those detained have "disappeared" — their relatives do not even know where they are being held.

Shame on any freedom-loving person who legitimizes China's totalitarian regime by participating in, attending, or even watching the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Wait for London.

I've been meaning to get this posted for a while now, ever since China's Communist dictators, and their Olympicrat apologists, "celebrated" the one-year countdown to the disgrace that will be the 2008 Olympics:

A year before the August 8, 2008 opening ceremonies for the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese government shows no substantive progress in addressing long-standing human rights concerns. Instead, apparently more worried about political stability, Beijing is tightening its grip on domestic human rights defenders, grassroots activists and media to choke off any possible expressions of dissent ahead of the Games.

"Instead of a pre-Olympic 'Beijing spring' of greater freedom and tolerance of dissent, we are seeing the gagging of dissidents, a crackdown on activists, and attempts to block independent media coverage," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

The piece identifies the following major atrocities:

• Forced evictions and school closures.


• Labor rights abuses.


• Repression of ethnic minorities.


• Controls on religious freedom.


• The death penalty and executions.


• HIV/AIDS rights advocacy obstruction.


• Use of house arrest system.


• Ties with rights violators.

China undoubtedly gets the gold medal for most of those competitions.

Not that you get to see that particular ceremony:

As part of Beijing's bid for the 2008 Olympics, in 2001 it assured the IOC that the government would ease its traditional chokehold on foreign and local journalists during the Olympic Games in Beijing. That commitment to wider media freedom is in line with the obligation of Olympic host cities to comply with Article 51 of the IOC Olympic Charter, which stipulates that the IOC should take "all necessary steps in order to ensure the fullest coverage by the different media and the widest possible audience in the world for the Olympic Games."

In other words, China's dictators promised to behave, for a change, like civilized leaders of a civilized government.

So much for that idea:

Foreign journalists have most often been harassed, detained and intimidated for pursuing stories deemed sensitive by the Chinese government, including coverage of political dissidents, Tibet, the country’s HIV-AIDS epidemic and issues of "social stability," such as riots, demonstrations and their aftermath.
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Alarmingly, some correspondents told Human Rights Watch that China's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has itself engaged in intimidation to discourage unwanted reporting. In one case, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs actively pressured a foreign news agency based in Beijing to scuttle coverage of a "sensitive" topic by one of its bureaus outside China, and retaliated with the refusal of a work visa when the news agency refused to comply.

Human Rights Watch said that these and other ongoing violations of the temporary regulations raise troubling questions about the freedom and security of the many thousands of journalists expected to come to China to cover the Olympics.

Incidentally, this new, faux "glasnost for journalists" applies only to foreigners. Chinese journalists (the real ones, not the shills for the state-sponsored media) are still subject to absolute control and censorship.

The report also documents the tightening surveillance and pressure faced by Chinese nationals who are assistants, researchers, translators or sources for foreign journalists in the run-up to the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. It examines how the Chinese government maintains a stranglehold on the activities of domestic journalists who are intentionally excluded from the new temporary regulations, and strictly censors local reporting to comply with official propaganda objectives.

Let the games begin...

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As despicable as the notion of choosing a Communist nation, or any dictatorship, to host an Olympiad may be, it is not a proper function of government to interfere:

US legislators introduced a resolution in the House of Representatives calling for a boycott of the 2008 Olympic games in Beijing unless China "stops engaging in serious human rights abuses," Congressional aides said.

Backed initially by eight lawmakers from President George W. Bush's Republican party, the resolution also calls on Beijing to "stop supporting serious human rights abuses by the governments" of Sudan, Myanmar and North Korea, the aides said Tuesday.

While it's nice to see someone in Congress giving a damn about China's human rights abuses, a repeat of 1980 is not the answer. Not to dilute the phrase, but we should have total "separation of Olympics and state." There should be no taxpayer subsidies to our Olympic teams, no use of eminent domain to build Olympic stadiums, no co-opting of the dictionary disguised as an intellectual property grant. No government involvement of any kind.

But likewise, the government has no place restricting the free movement of people or money — even to the Beijing Olympics. If Americans choose to shame themselves by participating in, visiting, or watching broadcasts of this insanity, then so be it. That's between them and their consciences.

More thoughts at Political Mavens.

The Dalai Lama calls China's bluff:

The Dalai Lama on Tuesday invited international observers, including Chinese officials, to scour his offices here and investigate whether he had any role in inciting the latest anti-Chinese violence in Tibet. He also threatened to resign as leader of Tibet's government-in-exile in the event of spiraling bloodshed in his homeland.

To review:

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has accused the Dalai Lama of masterminding the recent days of demonstrations against Chinese rule in Tibet's capital, Lhasa. Mr Wen said the exiled Tibetan spiritual leader's claim of "cultural genocide" was "nothing but lies".
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"There is ample fact and plenty of evidence proving this incident was organised, premeditated, masterminded and incited by the Dalai clique," he said.

If there is "ample fact and plenty of evidence," then China's Communist authoritarians should have no problem finding it. And if they can't, then surely they will be able to manufacture. Thus ever with tyrants.

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Of course, with oppressive regimes like China manufacturing false evidence often goes hand-in-hand with concealing truthful evidence:

Internet users in China were blocked from seeing YouTube.com on Sunday after dozens of videos about protests in Tibet appeared on the popular U.S. video Web site.

The blocking added to the communist government's efforts to control what the public saw and heard about protests that erupted Friday in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, against Chinese rule.
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Beijing tightened controls on online video with rules that took effect Jan. 30 and limited video-sharing to state-owned companies.

Acts like this (not to mention acts like this or this) ought lay to rest the preposterous notion that "Market Communism" is viable notion or that political freedom can be divorced from economic freedom. No matter how many shiny new skyscrapers (in special economic zones accessible only to loyal elites) China's Communist brutal thugs may build, it will not change the fact that they are brutal thugs.

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As for the free world's myopic, disgraceful legitimization of China's jackboot regime via the 2008 Olympics, I merely reiterate my long-held position: Shame on anyone who competes in, sponsors, attends or even watches this totalitarian travesty.

"Subversion" (whatever that means) is still a crime in China — quite a serious one:

Chinese activist Hu Jia was jailed Thursday for three-and-a-half years for subversion, his lawyer said as rights groups said the charge is a campaign by China to silence dissent before the Olympics.

The United States and the European Union immediately spoke out in defence of Hu, who became the second Chinese dissident in less than two weeks to be jailed after using the Beijing Olympics to highlight human rights problems in China.

Hu, for many years one of China's highest-profile human rights campaigners, was found guilty at a Beijing court of "incitement to subvert state power" following a one-day trial last month, lawyer Li Fangping said.

Li said the subversion charge had related to the 34-year-old Hu posting articles on the Internet about human rights issues and speaking with foreign reporters.

Over three years in prison, for the Chinese equivalent of blogging.

Look on the bright side — maybe his jail cell will be in one of those shiny new skyscrapers China's Communist thugs are building. Who knows — maybe he'll even be shackled to a state-controlled TV so he can watch the Beijing Olympics.

How exactly is it a "free market" when the government can ban it?

French tour operators fear a "catastrophic" plunge in business after an order was apparently given to Chinese travel agents to stop selling trips to the country.

"The advice to discourage Chinese tourists from visiting France hasn't been officially confirmed, but it is being applied now by the travel agencies," said Pierre Shi, director of the China Travel Service agency.

Let's be clear: China's communist thugs don't give "advice" — they give orders.

Since the only way to enjoy China's (mostly fake) "prosperity" is by being a loyal member of the political elite, who doubts that any such Chinese elite who can afford to go to France in the first place will surely kowtow to "advice" from the jackboots not to go? Those who feast at the "market communism" buffet can also famine by it.

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Meanwhile:

China will name and shame companies which promise donations for earthquake relief efforts but then fail to live up to their pledges, a government official said on Friday.
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"The Ministry of Civil Affairs came out with clear rules on April 28 concerning companies which offer aid and then delay paying up," deputy head of the ministry's disaster relief office, Pang Chenmin, told a news conference.

"The aid ought to be given to the recipient as promised and in a timely manner. If it needs to be delayed for a day or two, they can coordinate with the relevant department," he added.

"But if it is not given, the recipient has the right to go after payment, and inform the public in an appropriate way," Pang said, without elaborating.

It's one thing to criminalize outright fraud in charitable solicitation. But is hardly a legitimate function of government -- democratic, authoritarian or otherwise -- to demonize donor entities that, for whatever reason, may have to delay or cancel pledges of assistance. What, one wonders, will be the chilling effect of such a enemy-concocting policy?